


Brother, I Am Fire

by havocthecat



Category: Lost Boys (1987), Lost Boys (Movies), Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010), Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, F/M, Family, Found Family, Het and Slash, M/M, Multi, Other, Siblings, Threesome - F/M/M, Vampire Bites, Vampire Family, Vampire Sex, Vampires, Werewolf Bites, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael and Star are married and have fled Santa Carla, but after they've returned for Lucy's illness and her funeral, they find that David is still alive - and hunting them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brother, I Am Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Because The Tribe and The Thirst were completely terrible, I've written my own 20+ years later story for The Lost Boys, which includes deleted plot elements from the latter two films, as well as Zoe.
> 
> Originally posted on Dreamwidth: [Brother, I Am Fire](http://havocs-cry.dreamwidth.org/2016/01/19/brother-i-am-fire.html)

BROTHER, I am fire  
Surging under the ocean floor.  
I shall never meet you, brother--  
Not for years, anyhow;  
Maybe thousands of years, brother.  
Then I will warm you,  
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,  
Use you and change you--  
Maybe thousands of years, brother.  
\--"Kin," Carl Sandburg

The sun broke over the horizon and began its slow, sure arc across the sky. Just like it did every day. Star sat on the porch in a half-doze, a thick white comforter wrapped around her. She pushed her feet against the weathered floorboards and rocking gently on the wooden swing, watching as the light brightened the red and yellow leaves on the trees around her.

Michael slipped outside and let the screen door bang shut with a clatter. He held out a mug of coffee and Star brushed off his worried look as she took it from him. She let her head fall against Michael's side as he settled next to her. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

Star shook her head and leaned against the broad plane of Michael's chest as it rose and fell.

"The funeral's at two," she said. Michael didn't look at her, just wrapped his arm around her and the blanket and held her. The sun was gloriously cold and the air was chilled around them. She wasn't cold, though. Not with Michael.

"I thought we were going to the visitation," said Star, glancing up at him. "We said we'd go to the lunch after it's done."

"I don't want lunch." Michael's eyes were distant and he stared at the fence, where Nanook used to be tied up. Where they'd almost lost Michael and Sam at the start of that night.

Of course he didn't. Neither of them did. They ate anyway, to keep up appearances. To feel like people.

"When is Sam arriving?" asked Star. She held the coffee in one hand, watching as steam curled up into the air.

"Sam's not coming today." Michael shrugged. "His flight got diverted to Luna Bay. He won't get in until tomorrow."

"But your mom--" said Star, sitting up to stare at Michael. She tilted her head and stared at him, like the force of her expression could reach through Michael to Sam, somehow. "It's Lucy's funeral."

"Sam swore he never wanted to come back to Santa Carla." Michael clenched his fist. "Maybe he was right. Maybe we should never have come back here. We're never going to get over it, not here."

"We're never going to get over it." She stared at his face, at the faint lines inset around his mouth and the wrinkles just fading in at the corners of his eyes. They'd been just fading in since she'd met him. "Not in Santa Carla or Los Angeles or even on the other side of the world. You know that."

He sagged back, slumping against the wall, wearier than she'd seen him in years. Not since after that night, when they'd scrubbed for hours. When the sun had come up, and Star realized that none of them had fallen asleep with the dawn.

"Yeah." Michael ran his hand through his hair and Star pretended not to notice it was trembling. "Yeah, I do."

***

Waves still beat against the cliffs. There was a time when the ocean had lulled her to sleep every morning, when the mold and dust and the animals dwelling in the walls of the broken hotel hadn't bothered her. When she had picked her way through broken glass with inhuman grace and soared above the ocean by moonlight. When she was so hungry her thirst burned inside her and every night it had been harder to resist. Until Michael.

That was what she was supposed to say, wasn't it? That she'd never hungered for his blood. She'd wanted his blood more than anyone's. But she'd loved him, loved him from the start, and for that she wouldn't kill him. That had been worth more than blood. It still was. Sometimes Star woke from dreams, not nightmares, not even when she told herself she should be afraid, where she and Michael still walked the night with David.

"Star? What the hell are you doing here?" Michael scrambled down the rock-strewn stairs and ran into the hotel, into David's chair, never quite the throne he'd wanted it to be. Into the bed where they'd first been together. To the dark spot on the fissured wall where Michael had thrown Max's blood, where it had shattered and dried. She could still smell it, like twenty years ago had been yesterday.

"I had to see it." She turned toward Michael, arms wrapped around herself, somehow feeling seventeen, dressed in glowing white and long skirts, with an embroidered shawl covering her. Shielding her, unlike today when she'd walked in without needing to hide, but she still and forever felt like that seventeen year old girl, scared and strong. Defiant. Fighting.

"You haven't been back here since that night." Michael stared at her, at everything, as lost in their ghosts as she had been.

"Since we lost Marko," said Star. She hadn't heard his death, hadn't heard him cry out. By then she'd been too far away, sleeping in the convertible and blocking the sun out with a thin shield of embroidered silk. It had leeched all her strength, so much that she couldn't have woken even if she'd tried.

"We didn't lose him," said Michael, standing solid as a presence even though the world circled around, with everything else in her life changing, everything but him. "Marko was a fucking vampire. That's why Edgar killed him."

He reached for Star's hand, but she stood still, unyielding, and his arm fell to his side. "So were we." She turned back to stare at the dark red stain. "Why did we live, when they had to die? They were only trying to save Laddie and me."

"Sammy needed me," said Michael. He'd liked the boys. She knew that, knew their deaths had eaten him alive once the adrenaline rush and the bloodlust had faded. He'd admired David, looked up to him, even with his need for power, for control. "He was just a kid."

"He was just a kid, but they were my brothers." She sank down to the ground, crouching against the cold stone and old rugs, wet with salt spray, worn through in spots and starting to mold at the edges. Morrison's portrait was gone, weathered to nothing in the places it hadn't been shredded by wildlife. "They would have been yours."

"I know." He did. He woke from the same dreams Star did. The hunger had grown again in him and sometimes it was all he could think about it. She'd seen it in his eyes.

"I miss them." Star looked down. The rocks at her feet were sharp and jagged from the earthquake, even though it was more than a hundred years ago, not worn smooth from millennia of tumbling waves. They were like her and Michael, full of sharp edges and sheared off planes, even after so long. Laddie was gone now too, staying safe at home with a wife and daughter to take care of. His loss was another jagged edge.

She picked up a rock, one set carefully to the side of David's chair, near Star's bed. Laddie had brought it back from the cliffs. He'd cut himself on before they'd met him. The blood had drawn Dwayne and Marko and they'd brought Laddie back to the hotel with them. Star held the weight of it in one hand, solid granite that chilled her palm.

She'd given all of this up to keep Michael safe. She'd had him for twenty years, Sam too. She'd had Lucy for as long, more a mother than her own had been, until the cancer had taken her last week. Her soul ached, sometimes, for David, for Paul and Dwayne and Marko. For losing Laddie to time. For having to watch Lucy fade away and try to stay cheerful until the end. There was only one offering to the dead that she could make in a place like this, a place that drowned her in memories.

Star gripped Laddie's rock tight, held him as close as she could hold any of the lost to her, and sliced the sharp end of the granite across the width of her forearm.

Michael cried out. She barely heard him over the pain, over the deep red blood that welled up on her skin - still so pale - and dripped onto the granite below her feet, soaking the worn edges of the carpet.

"Fuck, Star." He grabbed her arm, clamped down on her wrist. Blood covered his hands, the scent of it filling the air and filing her mouth, and she wanted it so badly her mouth watered for just a taste. Michael froze, staring at her, his eyes full of the same hunger. "Why'd you do that?"

"I had to." She couldn't do it. Couldn't find the words for the torrent of emotion pouring through her or the blood pulsing through her veins, so Star shook her head, still staring at Michael. Still hungry for him in so many ways.

"We should go," said Michael. He pulled his hand off her wrist and stared at it for a long moment before he scraping his tongue across his hand, licking off the blood and then scrubbing his hand down the flat black cotton of his pants. It wouldn't show the color, but she'd smell the blood on him for the rest of the day. He wouldn't stop looking at her, not until he was done. "We're gonna be late."

The blood flow had stopped, turned to droplets on her wrist and clots drying on her skin. Too much. People would see. Everyone in Santa Carla loved Lucy, everyone in town who had been touched by the shelter she'd opened in Max's house would be there. Star unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and tied it into a bracelet around her wrist.

***

They were staying at Lucy's house, had been for months, using Lucy's kitchen and not looking at the fireplace. Looking at anything else, everything else but that. Watching Lucy's TV. Her bedroom smelled like antiseptic and medicine, but most of all it smelled like the slow, lingering rot in her veins that had blossomed into death. Michael's bedroom smelled like leather and the set of weights he'd left there when they'd moved out of Santa Clara, away from all of this. When they'd spent twenty years traveling the world.

Michael's bedroom, that was where they tried to sleep. Where they pretended to sleep, until midnight rolled throughout Santa Carla and moonlight poured in through the window, the curtains fluttering in the open breeze. Star had felt most alive at midnight, with the moon making her skin gleam and stars glittering across the sky. She turned to Michael, his eyes open and staring at her. She had her head pillowed on her arm, her tank top tugged half down and showing her breasts and all Michael could think about was poor, dead Lucy.

Until Star shifted under the thin blankets, until she brushed against his arm and his eyes widened. Until he grabbed Star, tangling his hands in her hair and yanking her close, sliding down her body, parting her thighs and breathing her in, his tongue flicking at her clit and his fingers thick and callused, rough from work and pressing just right, until she floated in a haze of bliss.

Michael hauled himself up and slid inside her. His mouth was slick and red and, when he kissed her, he tasted of iron. They moved together, gasping for breath, while Michael moved more frantically, thrusting and filling her over and over again. He grunted, hoarse and guttural, his hips stuttering, until he collapsed on top of her.

He slept then, rolling onto his side and slinging an arm over Star's waist, while she stared out the window and listened to the night birds as clouds rolled across the sky.

***

The moon was hidden for now, the dark and the clouds gray and angry-looking. She hadn't slept, hadn't been able to. When Michael's breathing had evened out and the lines of worry had smoothed from his face, she'd slipped out of bed, taken one of Lucy's quilts and crept down the stairs, out to the porch swing again, the quilt wrapped around the gauzy white nightgown she'd put on. She hadn't turned on the light, hadn't needed to. Hadn't wanted to see the glaring floodlights illuminating everything for a quarter mile, the ones they'd installed after that night.

The yard was full of silhouettes, knick-knacks and sculptures, old charms that Michael's grandfather had strung up. They'd never cleaned out the yard after he'd passed. Lucy had never wanted to lose the last pieces of him. Star supposed she and Michael might, if they stayed in Santa Carla. The nights were long here, and the sounds of the ocean were everywhere, louder even than the shrieks of laughter from the boardwalk.

It was beautiful here, with trees as dark outlines against a darker sky, with birds that were too afraid to sing during the harshness of daylight. The night enveloped her, soothing and peaceful, but still Star didn't sleep. At the edge of her sight, beyond that, there was a glow, so faint that it wasn't there, except for the way it pressed on her, heavier than anything but daylight, and coming toward her. She heard it too, over the sounds of the ocean and the boardwalk, over the snoring that came from Michael's open bedroom window. A motorcycle roared, the sound in her ears, while all the charms in the yard clattered against the fence.

Star looked up. David stood on the porch. Antlers through his chest hadn't been the same as a wooden stake through his heart. His blond hair was shorter, but his pale skin still glowed in the darkness. He wore the same trench coat, or maybe a new one by now, still wore ripped black jeans and a faded t-shirt. Of course he did. He stared at her without a smirk, without smiling or frowning. He just stared. That was when he was at his most dangerous, when he wasn't feeling anything human.

When David smiled, it was always edged with danger, always with the killer just underneath, waiting to surface. He still smiled like that, still looked at her the same way he always had. If she hesitated, he'd rip her throat out just like he'd ripped so many throats out in front of her.

"Are you here to kill us, David?" she asked, standing. His eyes had the flat look of a predator, weighing and judging the lone human cut off from the herd. Twenty years and he hadn't changed - but she had learned that she was no longer weak. That she had never been weak, not then and certainly not now.

Whatever he found must have been enough, at least for now, because his expression blossomed into a smile. It wasn't kind. It wasn't gentle. It meant, at least, that he wasn't there to kill her. "Last I heard, you and Michael were in Istanbul."

"That was nine months ago," said Star. She smiled, dancing on the edge of danger. Part of her had loved it. Part of her still did. "If you've been stalking us for this long, you're pretty bad at it."

David's laugh was low and throaty, reaching inside her and dredging up memories of countless nights with him, with the boys and Laddie, in the time before Michael, when she'd been another of those runaway girls, one that fell in with the wrong crowd. A girl that belonged with them more than she knew, not until it was too late. "I knew you'd come back to Santa Carla."

"You didn't answer my question." Star set her emotions aside, the thready undercurrent of panic, the thrill of matching herself against him, her grief for Lucy that lay under everything, and stared at David just as dispassionately as he'd studied her.

David's eyes were hungry, and Star knew, she knew, just what he wanted. "You never stopped being one of us, Star. You know that."

"Just you and me, David?" asked Star. She looked away from him, looked where Michael's breathing had changed. Because only a scared, lost girl would behave like the vampire she was talking to would rip her throat out at any second. She had something David wanted, and she glanced up at the open window, where it was silent except for the harsh sound of Michael breathing.

"Let's see what Michael has to say." David grabbed her as the wind whirled around them, carrying them up and through the open bedroom window. Star's bare feet had just touched down on the woolen rug, the roses woven into it old and faded, but still whole, when Michael threw himself at David, knocking him to the ground. He pinned David, throwing punches at him while David laughed. Blood covered Michael's fists, the scent of it permeating the air.

Star breathed it in. She could taste it, metallic and thick, and she wanted it. She wanted more. She shouldn't, she never should have tasted in the first place, but the vampire had grown inside her and never let go, not even after they'd staked Max.

"Michael," said Star, and he looked up at her, frozen. His eyes were incandescent with rage, the way they hadn't been in twenty years. She let the blanket slip off her shoulders and sat down on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, the embroidered quilt pooled around her feet. "It's not worth it if you're not going to kill him, and I don't want you to kill him."

"Little Star grew a backbone." David laughed again, his head falling back against the dusky pinks on the rug before the wind moved through the room and Michael was sprawled on the ground, David standing over him, one hand clenched into a fist. Michael's nose was bloody. "What about you, Michael? Did you grow a backbone?"

Michael pushed himself up, every muscle taut and hatred in his eyes. He glared at David, his chest heaving and his hands red. "If you're not dead, where the hell have you been?"

"He's been looking for us." Star smiled, a wide grin that she couldn't stop, an expression she remembered from long nights on the beach, sitting behind David as they raced across the boardwalk.

"You asshole," snarled Michael. Blood dripped from his nose into his mouth, and Michael licked his lips, looking hungrier than he had in twenty years. "You put your blood in that bottle too. It wasn't just Max."

"It was never about Max!" Tendons stood out like cords on David's neck. His eyes were golden and, under the blood spattered across his face, his skin was whole, not even bruised. "You don't belong in the day. Star knew. Did you think she'd lose her mind over just any boy?"

"I was right not to take him as my first." She rose and stared out the window, past the yard and at the city itself. "All along."

She could hear David's boots tapping on the floorboards. He walked closer to her, took her wrist in his hands.

"Don't touch her!" Michael sprang at David, snarling with anger, only to be flung away when David whirled and backhanded him. He slid down the wall, with its peeling white paint, and slumped onto the bed.

"There's only one way to do this," said Star. It was done, had been done, but she wanted more. His grip was a cold vise around her wrist. She tilted her head to the side, invited him to her with a come-to-me look, the kind that so many men had followed just for the promise in her smile. That so many had died for, not realizing that following her meant the boys lying in wait with tests and games that only had death lying at the end for any of them, any of them until Michael.

"No fancy wine bottles this time." David grinned as he mocked her, mocked herself and him, for her teenage romanticism and for his former dependence on Max.

Michael lay on the bed staring at them. Waiting to see how to react.

"Twenty years is a long time to be alone." She didn't need to ask if he'd turned any more vampires. He'd have brought them if he had. David wasn't meant to be alone, none of them were. At least she and Michael had had each other.

"You and lover boy going to get squeamish again and run off?"

"The idea is to stay forever." Star leaned forward, before she could think better of it, and kissed David. She'd never loved him before, never loved him the way she loved Michael, without fear. He'd never wanted her that way either, not as his equal, not cowed by him, but tonight he opened under her mouth, grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her closer, flush against him. His grip was hard, bruising her, and his teeth were sharp.

Star bit down on his lip. Blood welled up, dripping into her mouth, iron and rust and the underlying tang of death with the promise of forever. David growled and jerked back, his eyes golden and wide with surprise.

"Star!" Michael exclaimed. He pushed himself up, wobbling, and lurched to his feet. "What the hell are you doing?"

"It's all right." Star turned away from David, crawled onto the bed. Michael stared at her, not at the way she moved or the sway of her hips, but at the blood covering her mouth. It smelled better than anything she'd ever tasted, even the wine adulterated with Max's blood, old and strong blood. She wanted it, wanted to lick her lips and fill herself up on it, gorge on blood and then rush out to the beach, walk across the sand until she found someone incautious enough to be out in the middle of the night in Santa Carla.

She must have paused, because Michael grabbed her wrists and pulled her into a kiss, tasting her and chasing the taste of blood, thick and rich. When he was done, when he leaned his forehead against her shoulder, panting raggedly, Star smoothed her hand through his hair and murmured soundlessly in his ear.

"Isn't this pretty." David chuckled, mocking them. "Two little lovebirds."

"Shut up." Michael lifted his head and glared at him. "Just shut up. You asshole."

"You know what you have to do." David stood taller in the center of the room, almost glowing in the moonlight. "You know where to find me when you're done."

Fire arced through the room, roaring and crackling as smoke billowed through the air. Neither she nor Michael looked away, but David was gone between the space of one heartbeat and the next, and silence fell on the darkened room.

"Shit," said Michael, falling onto his back and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. "What the fuck did we just do?"

***

"You know you look the same, right?" asked Sam, walking past them, into the house, and dropping a duffel bag on the floor. He threw a pair of sunglasses onto the table. "Like, seriously, Mike, I thought you were going to go bald after high school, but you don't even have gray hair. That is a seriously weird side effect for my brother, the ex-vampire."

Michael pulled off his sunglasses and stared through the door at where Sam was rifling through the fridge. "You have no idea."

Star stirred and opened her eyes. "Hi, Sam," she murmured. "Thought you weren't coming."

"Yeah, well, Luna Bay was a bust," he said, his voice muffled as he leaned further back in the fridge. "Fucking Alan Frog. Did you know he's a fucking vampire now?"

"So?" Michael let his head fall back against the porch swing. "What, are you going to stake him? Thought he hated you."

"I got two puncture wounds in my neck and a mouthful of blood that say otherwise, big bro," said Sam, drawing back from the fridge and yanking the collar of his shirt aside. There were big, blackened scabs over the wounds, right at the join of his neck and shoulder. They weren't ragged, not torn at all. There was no way Alan had been trying to hurt Sam. Just to bite him.

Michael chuckled bitterly. After all of that, all of their trying to keep Sam out of it, and he got dragged in anyway. Fuck.

"This place smells like death," said Sam. He pulled open the fridge and waved one hand at its contents before slamming it shut again. "I haven't seen you in ten years, you don't look like an old man, you have fuck all to eat, and there's, like, three tubs of blood in here. Anything you want to tell me?"

"You sound like you have it all figured out." The sunlight was shining on him, warm and bright and he had no strength to fight with Sammy. His eyes were heavy and there was no point to moving, not with Star laying on his chest and hours to go until sunset.

"Wake up, man." Sam strode over to his duffel bag, yanked out a pair of dirty socks rolled together into a ball and lobbed it at Michael's face.

Michael gagged and rolled over, upending Star, who jumped to her feet with a look of alarm. The socks reeked of sweat and ground-in dirt, and Star kicked the bundle into the yard with the pointed toe of her boot. The smell faded, covered by the scents of grass and mold. "You didn't have to do that," she said.

"You never got better, did you?" asked Sam accusingly. "All that 'it's over,' that was all bullshit, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't bullshit," said Michael, pushing himself up enough to lean against the deck rail. "We thought it was over."

Star collapsed back onto the porch swing. She lay bonelessly across it, her dark hair spilling down her arm and onto the white shirt she had on, not even noticing the lack of cushions. She had one arm flung over her head, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"So, what, you were just wrong? How can you be wrong about whether you're a vampire or not?" Sam wasn't stepping out on the porch into the sunlight. Figured. He didn't like it any more than they did.

"Can't we just talk about this tonight?" asked Michael, mumbling. He slumped back. His eyelids were too heavy and the sun was too much weight pressing on him. "Jesus, Sammy."

Sam opened his mouth and Michael fell asleep before he heard anything his brother said.

***

"Wake up, dumbass." Sam was crouching next to him, shaking him. "It's sunset. Time to get your vampire ass out of bed."

Michael blinked a few times and then cracked his eyes open to look at Sam. No sunlight, just the moon and a few street lamps making it easier to see. "You missed Mom's funeral."

Sam flinched and tried to recover. "I got attacked by a vampire. I think it's a good excuse, bro."  
  
"You should've called us," muttered Michael, pushing himself up. "We'd have helped."

Sam held out a hand and Michael grabbed it, let Sam help haul him to his feet. Star was sitting up on the porch swing, stretching and blinking the sleep out of her eyes.

"I didn't know Alan was a homicidal maniac," pointed out Sam. "Did Mom know? Any of it?"

"She had leukemia, Sammy," snapped Michael. "Not brain cancer. She knew the first week."

"What'd she say?" Sam fidgeted, tapping his hands against his legs. He never stood still.

Star unfolded from the porch swing and stood. Her long skirts swished along the ground. She almost glowed in the moonlight. She was calmer than when they first met. Not less wild, less afraid. She'd never been tame, not Star, but now she was comfortable with herself. She was everything to him. "She didn't sleep much. It meant we had more time with her."

"What are we gonna do now, Mike?" asked Sam, pacing back and forth. He pulled out a chair, flipped it back to front and swung himself down into it, then leaned on the back and stared at them. "You two are half vampires and I don't even know who you have to kill to turn back to normal, and I have to kill someone who used to be one of my best friends." He grimaced. "I don't know if I can do that, guys."

Star looked at him, weighing him. What did she see? What had she ever seen that made her stay? She didn't want him to save her. Hell, she'd run to David, not attacked him. "Michael and I aren't killing him. Not for this."

She was right. If he'd wanted to kill David, he'd have tried harder last night.

Michael he leaned on the doorway as Sam squirmed. "You've got two choices: Kill Alan, or stay half turned until you can't anymore."

"Is there something in the Emerson family name that screams 'vampire bait?'" asked Sam. He pounded his head against the back of the chair. "What am I going to do?"

"You." David stood in the doorway, his eyes narrowed with rage.

Sam fell off the chair and scrambled backward, out from under the chair as it toppled onto him. He flew across the room and grabbed Sam, twisting his hands in Sam's shirt and lifting him into the air.

"It's him!" Sam yelped. "It's David! Vampire!"

"You killed Dwayne." David slammed Sam into the ceiling, then flung him down. He left spiderweb cracks in the old, yellowed linoleum where he hit the ground and rolled over.

"Leave him alone, David!" exclaimed Star. She shot up to block him as Michael leapt into the air and caught Sam, lowering them to the ground.

"You okay?" asked Michael.

"Holy fuck! You still talk to this guy?" Sam stepped back. "You can still fly? Son of a _bitch_ , Mike."

"He killed Dwayne," said David, seething. He stared past Star, past Michael, to Sam.

"Dwayne was trying to kill Sam." Star had her hand on David's chest, fingers splayed. It was a weight keeping David in place. "You can't blame him for that."

"You're not touching my little brother." Michael had one arm shielding Sam. "Sammy, go upstairs."

"Did I just hear you right? You want me to leave you with this guy?" Sam shoved at Michael, trying to get past, but Michael had always been the stronger one.

"He's not going to hurt us," said Michael, grinding the words out. Star was whispering something to David. He couldn't hear what she was saying. "Just go."

"Fine," snapped Sammy. "But you owe me."

He stalked outside and slammed the door.

***

"You can come down now." Michael glanced up at Star and David. He looked angry, angry at her, at David, because she was close to him. She'd always been close to David. When it had been good, before she'd known what they were, David had made her feel safe. Protected. Even after she'd known what he was, he'd tried to cajole her into smiling.

She met Michael's eyes and kept his gaze as she let the wind die, as she floated to the ground. Her hand was still on David's chest, still connecting her to him.

"It's all right," she said. The night closed in around them, around her. "Sam is family. David understands."

"For you, Star," said David. His voice was still rough, still angry. "For you."

"What are you doing here?" asked Michael. "Checking up on us?"

He was still angry at them, at the time they'd spent together while he was chasing after them. "I didn't know you were planning a family reunion."

"My mom just died, David," said Michael, clenching his fists. "Did you think Sam was going to skip the funeral?"

"The last time I saw you and your brother together, my boys didn't make it out alive," said David.

"Yeah, and now my brother got bit," said Michael. He stepped forward, muscling into David's space. "You want us to be one happy vampire family now, huh?"

"I didn't do it," snarled David. "I don't want him. Just you."

Star moved up toward them, looking at David and slipping one arm around Michael's waist, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You need to calm down. Michael and I are going out."

***

The games along the boardwalk had been updated, some of them, and the Frog's comic book store was a jewelry shop. The garlic smell hadn't dissipated from the vents, but that hadn't stopped a handful of teenage girls from hovering around a display, giggling at something that Star couldn't see. The carousel had a fresh coat of paint, and the lights were expensive LEDs instead of cheap bulbs, but they still turned out and the rides slowed to a stop at midnight.

The beach was never empty. The homeless wandered along the shore or slumped against the dunes, sleeping in the warmth and without worrying about the police. There were fences up, that was new, but they'd been broken down or cut. Teenagers and college students sat and watched the beach, the pot wafting into the air all around them. Waves came up on the beach and the salt spray and smell of fish was everywhere. The farther they got from the city, though, the darker the beach grew and the people were fewer and further between.

"Nothing ever changes, does it?" asked Michael. The stars were covered by clouds, but the moon was half full and always brighter here, away from the city.

"Sure it does," said Star. She had his hand in hers, their bodies leaning into each other, and she nodded at a couple sitting at a bonfire, passing around a bottle of something alcoholic and laughing together. "I'd bet they have cell phones."

"Why are we out here, Star?" asked Michael.

She stopped and turned to face him, turned so that he couldn't see anything but her and the ocean behind her. "I can't kill David."

"I can." Michael had one hand on her shoulder, gripping her hard enough to leave bruises, or he would have left bruises, if they hadn't been what they were. "I can kill him. We could be normal again."

"You can't." She slipped out of Michael's grasp and closer to him, to where she could wrap her arms around his waist and lean her cheek on his chest. "Never. David--" She couldn't lose him either. Wouldn't lose him too, not when he was a part of her. Her brother, as much as Sam was Michael's.  
  
Michael cupped his hands around her face and turned her face up, kissing her with so much softness and care that she melted against him. "Star," he whispered.

When she opened her eyes and looked at him, his eyes were golden and his teeth had sharp fangs. She leaned forward and kissed him again, harder this time, and she drew in her breath when his teeth gashed open her tongue. Blood flooded her mouth, hers and Michael's both, she could taste the difference, bright and dark mingled together and she moaned, pulling Michael closer and crushing herself to him, cupping the back of his neck.

"Vampires!" she heard one of the bonfire goers cry out, and Star looked up to see him holding a crossbow aimed at them, but his voice was cut off into a liquid gurgle by a man jumping out of the shadows and tearing at his throat.

"Sam!" Michael pushed Star away and stumbled toward the fire, his eyes still golden and his voice guttural. The woman ran toward them, holding something sharp, maybe a stake, but Michael had his arm out. He curved it around her waist and kept walking forward, dragging her back toward the fire. Before she knew what he was doing, the woman was on the ground and Michael was on top of her. The scent of blood filled the air and she shrieked, again and again while Star watched, while blood soaked the sand and Michael and Sam fed.

She was hungry. The vampire was hungry, the part of her that she'd run from for so long reared up inside her. It dragged her forward, one, two, three steps until Star dug her nails into her palms, until blood blossomed on her hands, bright, and the pain brought her back to herself, standing, motionless. She couldn't move forward, couldn't turn and run.

Couldn't do anything but stare, her stomach roiling, still hungry, even when the woman's screams had faded to whimpers and her breathing stopped. Even when Sam dropped the man to the ground with a dull thud, his eyes open and empty and staring at the sky.

Star held her breath, held it and unclenched her hands and started to breathe out, slow and even and hungrier than ever.

"Well, shit," said Sam, straightening up. Blood covered his chin, his whole face was lit by the orange glow of the fire. "I didn't expect that."

"Star," said Michael, lost and reaching for her. He stumbled toward her and she caught him, caught his choking breaths, held him to her, where she felt the heat from the fire and from the blood inside him, on him, burning her up. He said her name over and over again, and Star held him, stroking his hair as the fire behind him crackled and burned.

"You have to break their necks." Star's looked past Michael, over at Sam. "Break their necks and burn them."

"Really?" Sam stared down at the bodies, then kicked one. His sneakers were spattered with blood. "That's gross. Why?"

"Or they'll turn and you'll have vampire-hunting vampires." Star pulled back and stared at Michael, holding out her hands and tugging him to his feet. His eyes were blue again, like the midday sky he'd never see the sun rise on or the ocean on a cool day. "Like me and Michael."

***

Sam was gone, at least for now, running off with a terse, over the shoulder shout of "Don't kill anyone I wouldn't kill!"

He didn't want to talk. Star didn't blame him. She had wandered the rest of the night, Michael by her side, his arm around her, but always looking at the people they passed by with a flat stare, gauging their vulnerability, their isolation. Gauging whether anyone would miss them.

He didn't look at her like that. He wanted her, stared at her with naked lust and spent time nuzzling at her throat with blunt teeth, and sliding his hands along her skin until she shivered with desire. Until she couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close to her, breathing in the scent of blood overlaying his scent, the old leather and the smell of skin and sweat she'd learned years ago.

Michael pulled her into the shadow of a scrub tree grown oversized and kissed her, pulled up her skirt and tore away her panties, letting them drop to the sand. Star backed up, tugging Michael with her, until she felt the rough bark of the tree trunk through her shirt. He fumbled with the buckle of his pants and shoved them down as she wrapped her legs around his waist and he slid into her.

She was ready, had been on the edge for hours, and Star threw her head back and laughed while Michael filled her, while every sense was alive as she pushed back against the tree trunk and moved against him. When she looked up, over Michael's shoulder, she saw a flash of white-blonde hair. David stood there, on top of a dune. She opened her mouth, tried to say something. Tried to, but couldn't, get any air, couldn't get the words out.

Not with Michael's hands gripping her waist, his cock inside her, and then she was gone, spiraling away. Her vision blurred into a red-gold haze as she cried out, thrusting harder against Michael as he shuddered and she could feel him inside her, heat and pleasure and fulfillment. Twenty years together, twenty years and he still made her feel that way. Even with David's gaze on them, even when she couldn't look away, not until Michael let her down and they straightened their clothes.

David chuckled, a dark, raspy sound, and started walking toward them.

Michael whirled. "How long you been there?"

"Long enough," said David. "Sun's coming. You want to burn?"

Star glanced at the ocean. The horizon had lightened, past gray into the roses and pinks of dawn, and they hadn't noticed.

"Shit!" Michael swept her up into his arms, cradled her close to his chest as he and David rose into the air, sweeping across the sand, across the ocean, to the jagged openings of all the caves created by the earthquake. The sun had risen, just barely, and the sky was turning blue as David flew into one of the caves and Michael followed, weaving past stalactites and stalagmites, up an unreachable pathway and through to a tiny cavern with blankets and pillows nested on the ground.

"I have to call Sam." Michael set Star on the ground and pulled out his cell phone. He frowned. "No signal. I have to find him."

"Don't be stupid." David stepped in front of him. "If he didn't find cover, he's dead. If you go out, you're dead."

"Damn it!" Michael turned and slammed his fist into the cave wall. The rock cracked. His hand wasn't even bruised.

Star looked at the cavern's entrance. It wasn't far to go. The sunlight wouldn't kill her. She could get out and go home, even if was sapping her strength. Even if the blankets and the pillows looked so comfortable. "I could look for him."

"Stay." Michael was already on the ground. He closed his hand around hers, tugged her down and pulled her close. "Stay safe."

"You can look at sunset," offered David.

Michael felt safe and warm enough, but she pulled a blanket over to cover them from habit. The sun was on the rocks outside, no light seeping through, but the sunlight was heavy, affecting even inside this cave. She yawned, her vision fading out, and the last thing she saw before sleep took her was David settling down on her other side, his eyes closed and his features smooth and peaceful.

Star slept without dreaming. She could feel the sun at its zenith, feel when the sun inched downward in the sky. The pressure on her let up, like she was at the bottom of the ocean and floating upward, growing lighter with the darkness, until she felt it go down, sinking below the horizon. She opened her eyes, glanced through the cave.

"Star." David was leaning against the rough granite wall of the cave. Watching her.

"David."

"Still can't kill, can you?"

Michael was asleep next to her, his body warm and his arms wrapped around her. His breath tickled gently against the side of her face. David stared at them, full of contempt, full of anger, but she was older now, wiser. She and Michael had traveled the world, had talked to people in a dozen languages and been through more, experienced more, than she ever would have if she'd stayed in Santa Carla. Stayed with David.

"You think I'm weak." She eased out from under Michael's arm and stood in front of David, arms crossed and mouth quirked in a smile. "You've always thought that."

She saw it in his eyes before he moved, before he closed his hand around her throat, hard enough to bruise, soft enough to let her breathe. To let her talk. She didn't move out of the way.

"You've always been weak, Star."

"No, David." She unfolded her arms, reached up and clasped one hand around David's, tugged his hand away from her throat. Held it, even as he tried to pull away from her, her hand softer, gentler than he'd been with her. "If I make my first kill - when I make my first kill - it'll be on my terms. Not yours, not Michael's, not anyone's. Mine."

"All right, then." He gave her a long, searching look before chuckling, bitter and angry, but amused. "Your terms. Happy?"

"What's going on?" Michael was watching them, had been watching them, but for how long, Star didn't know.

"We had to come to an understanding," drawled David.

She heard him scuffling, heard Michael push himself up. "I've got to find Sam."

"He's probably at the house," said Star, turning her head to look back at Michael. "I'm sure he's looking for you."

"Then let's go." Wind whipped around them. Michael was out the tunnel before Star's hair settled back around her shoulders.

He'd always rush off to take care of his brother. Star shook her head and sighed, smiling fondly at the exit, at Michael, really, though he wasn't there to see it.

"Are you coming?" asked Star, glancing over at David.

He pushed away from the wall, his lips twisted into a smirk, and caught Star around the waist, tugging her into the air as they caught the wind. "I wouldn't miss this."

***

They weren't more than a minute behind Michael, but he was facing down Sam, the two of them already screaming at each other by the time she and David landed in the yard. She would have stepped forward, would have intervened, but she and David caught each other's gaze. Neither of them stepped forward, neither wanted to stop this from playing out. It was like twenty years ago, like when she was first with David, before things went bad.

"Ten years! Ten fucking years, bro! The first night I see you, I find out you're not out of this vampire shit." Cords stood out on the sides of Sam's neck and he was in Michael's face, shouting.

"Jesus, Sammy, I stayed away to keep you and Mom out of all this vampire shit."

"Well, you suck at doing that, since I fucking killed to save your sorry ass from hunters," snapped Sam. "What the hell did Star mean last night when she said you and she were vampires who hunted vampires?"

David looked at her, startled. "Star?" He still expected the girl she'd been, not the person she'd become.

"You know how territorial vampires are," murmured Star. "They didn't always like it when we moved into their region."

"So you have killed." David was grinning at her, pleased, even proud, in a bloodthirsty way. "Just not to feed."

"What are you doing with this guy anyway?" asked Sam, gesturing at David with a sharp look at Star. "I thought you hated him."

"Star likes him." Michael glanced at them, then away, uncomfortable.

Michael never hated Daniel, never wanted to kill him, though he'd never said that to anyone. Not even to Star. She wasn't supposed to know David would rather have Michael join them, that he didn't want to kill Michael if he didn't have to, but she'd never told Michael she'd heard the whole conversation, the whole fight. She'd never told him that deer antlers wouldn't kill a vampire.

David chuckled, a low, menacing sound. "You're one of us, Michael. Stop denying it."

"You're not helping," said Star. She pulled away from David, went to stand next to Michael.

"Why are you so angry, Sam?" she asked. "What's the real reason?"

"You left. You and Mike goddamn left, and Edgar and Alan went on hunting vampires until Alan got forced to drink a bunch of vampire blood," spat out Sam. His face was dark and he was scowling at her, scowling at all of them. "Now we're all one big happy vampire family for real. Nothing fucking changed."

"Everything changed," said David, anger flaring in his eyes. "Unless you know how to raise my boys from the dead."

If she knew a way, if she'd known a way all these years ago, Star didn't know what she'd have done. Even now, even two decades later, she missed them. If David had known, he'd have brought them back already.

She didn't. None of them did. They had to leave the dead in the past, where they belonged. At least it kept Max buried in the ground too. No chance of raising him.

"Was it worth it, Sam?" asked Star, stepping between him and Michael. "That's what you need to know. Making your first kill to save our lives?"

Sam stared at them, his mouth set in a hard line as he thought. He had questions, things he wasn't going to ask yet, but he would eventually, because Sam never let anything sit. Not for long. Tonight, though, all she wanted from him tonight was for him to answer her question.

"Yeah," he said, finally, grudgingly, as cars drove by the main road, their engines rumbling far away, but still close enough to hear. "Yeah, I'm glad neither of you are dead. Even if Mike's an idiot."

Star smiled, then, smiled at them both. "That's what I thought."

"I'm still pissed about being a vampire," said Sam. "Mostly."

"We'll figure it out, Sammy," said Michael. "We're still brothers."

"This is so sweet I could throw up," drawled David. Wind whipped through the trees and he rose into the air. "Don't get yourselves killed before sunrise."

"You're still an asshole!" shouted Michael after him, and David only laughed as he flew away.

An engine grew louder, someone's old car rumbled along and turned the corner. Its headlights flared against the dark of the night as someone drove up the road.

Star looked over at it, walked to the closed gate and stood in front of it, waiting for whoever they were, mourners or vampire hunters, or even both, because it was possible in Santa Carla.

"Another casserole?" asked Michael, his lip curling. "I hate those things."

"Could be Alan. Or Edgar." Sam pulled out his phone and tapped at the screen. "I left him a message about Mom a couple nights ago, before I had to save your sorry ass. If he finds out about us, he's not going to let it go."

"Edgar can kiss my ass," said Michael. He moved to stand near Star, wrapping his arms around her. "Who is that?"

"Do we care?" asked Star.

"Only about killing them," said Sam. "Except Edgar. Unless he tries to kill us."

"We're not killing anyone who wants to express their condolences about your mother," said Star, giving him a dirty look. Why would he think they could? The trick was to kill the people that wouldn't be missed, not the people that would. Most of the people who were bringing casseroles and sending flowers, those were the ones who had people who cared about them.

Why was she thinking about this? She couldn't stop thinking about this, always looking at the people around her and wondering who would miss them. She'd spent too much time hungry for blood, hungry and denying it, or trying to hold onto herself.

"Why not?" asked Sam.

"Because someone's going to miss them," said Michael, elbowing Sam, "and they're going to track them down to the last place they visited, which is Mom's house. Idiot."

Whoever it was, she opened the car door and got out, carrying a casserole dish full of garlic. Star met Michael's gaze and rolled her eyes. Garlic never worked, and everyone thought it did. Of course, this was her and Michael's house, Sam's too, so nothing would work, not here.

Star didn't know her, whoever she was, with her bobbed brown hair with red tips, but Edgar was stepping out of the car with her.

"Why'd you come back to this vampire-filled shithole of a town?" he asked, not even looking embarrassed when the brunette hissed at him.

"Don't be a dick, Edgar," said Sam, turning around and stalking into the house. Michael shook his head in disgust and followed him.

"Sam!" shouted Edgar. He hopped the fence and took off toward the house after him. "Sam, you dumbass!"

"Lucy just died; what do you expect?" Star took the casserole dish from the brunette and smiled apologetically. "Did he tell you they're always like this? I'm Star, by the way."

"Zoe." She looked just as apologetic as Star, but she smelled-- She smelled like fur and the wild, untamed forest, like nothing any human would ever smell like. Whoever she was, her nostrils flared as Star got close and she got a look on her face, like she was recognizing something. Like she was smelling everything about Star.

"Thanks for cooking something," said Star, nodding at the casserole, pretending not to notice the smell. "What is it?"

"You smell like death," hissed Zoe, stepping closer to the gate. "What are you?"

"You smell like a wet dog," whispered Star, leaning over the fence. "What are _you_? Does Edgar know?"

"No, he doesn't, and you're not going to tell him." Zoe's eyes flared amber, not vampire golden, not tinged with red. Like a dog's eyes, or a cat's. No, not reflective enough to be a cat's eyes, not subservient enough for a dog. A wolf. That's what she reminded Star of. Wolf eyes.

"You're a werewolf, aren't you?" asked Star, taking the casserole dish. She sniffed it and wrinkled her nose. "I wish Edgar would stop thinking he can cook."

"Are you a vampire?" asked Zoe. She gave Star a worried look. "Edgar's always talking about how Santa Carla is infested by the undead. I have a stake in my purse if you're going to try anything."

"Half-vampire, and I'm not going to kill you - and you're not going to tell Edgar either," said Star. She sighed. She was hungry, still and always, but no vampire killed everything in sight. No one did. "You know how he gets about anything that's not human."

"Now that we've got that settled, should we go inside?" asked Zoe brightly.

***

"What kept you two?" asked Edgar as they opened the door, still guttural. Somewhere along the way, talking like that nonstop had to have damaged his vocal cords. "Girl talk?"

"Don't be a jerk, Edgar," said Zoe, holding the door open for Star, who was walking in with the smell of garlic surrounding her. She set the casserole down on the counter and stepped across the room, trying to clear space in the tiny kitchen. "We were getting to know each other, since you didn't introduce us."

Michael was leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest as he watched, but his eyes met Star's and his mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile. Sam sat at the table, chair turned around and hands tapping on his legs, and Edgar, Edgar was there with a hard look on his face and a stake or two sticking out of the messenger bag stashed on the chair next to him. Star wasn't sure Edgar knew anything but comic books, surfing, and vampire killing.

"Like I was saying, sorry about your mom," said Edgar, setting business aside, at least for a moment, "but we have a very serious problem on our hands."

"We already know about Alan, dude," said Sam. "The question is who's he coming for first?"

"Doesn't matter," said Edgar. He leaned forward, his eyes hard and angry. "What matters is that we stake him before he gets any of us."

"How can you plan to kill your own brother?" asked Michael. "That's cold, Edgar."

"He's a bloodsucker," said Edgar, "and he's killed. There's no turning back for him."

"How's your girlfriend fit into the picture?" asked Sam, looking over at Zoe for the first time. "He after her too?"

"Okay, first off, Edgar and I aren't dating, and second, I have a name," said Zoe. She wasn't angry, just firm, and Star liked her already, partly for her not dating Edgar, and partly for the way she stood up for herself to everyone around her. "The least you could do is ask it instead of calling me 'the girlfriend.'"

"This is Zoe," said Star, nodding at her. "She's Edgar's friend and she knows about vampires."

"Can't stop hearing about them," said Zoe, smiling. "After all his stories about Santa Carla, I half expected them to jump out of every shadow."

"They only do that some of the time," offered Star, returning her smile. Usually you didn't notice them until it was too late.

"So should we dig into this food or what?" asked Edgar, nodding at the casserole dish. "I can plan to kill vampires while I'm eating. Unless you guys got squeamish?"

"It's eight o'clock," said Star, glancing at the clock. "We already ate."

Last night. At least, Sam and Michael had fed last night. She hadn't, she barely touched regular food any more, and she couldn't pour out some of the blood from the butcher's shop, not without arousing Edgar's suspicions.

"Edgar, just tell them," sighed Zoe. "You burned half the casserole; they're not even going to touch it like that."

Michael frowned at her, and Sam gave her a sharp look. "Tell us what?" asked Michael. When Edgar didn't answer, Michael straightened. "Tell us, Edgar."

"I made it with holy water," he said. "You think I didn't notice you and Star don't look any older? Just because I haven't seen you in person in ten years doesn't mean I'm blind on Skype. Have you two killed yet? Did Sam know?"

"I know," said Sam, pushing away the chair and standing up. "You think I care that my brother and sister-in-law are vampires?"

"The situation's worse than I thought," growled Edgar. He reached into his bag and pulled out a stake, aiming it at Star's chest. "Zoe, get out your stake. Plan's changed."

"This is ridiculous," said Star, though at least with that secret out in the open, she could stop being on edge around him. For that, at least. He might try to kill her, but she could talk him out of it. Words were her gift, words and observation, more than any skill she had with killing. "Edgar, no one is going to hurt you. We're your friends."

"The only vampire after you is your brother, bud," said Sam. "Unless you want to make it an issue with Star and Mike."

"I told you that you didn't need to kill them," said Zoe, frowning at Edgar. "They haven't come after you. Just don't invite Alan inside, or whatever."

"Did you not read any of those comics I recommended?" asked Edgar. "Vampires are soulless creatures of the night."

"Vampires Everywhere isn't exactly well-written," said Zoe. She reached into her purse and pulled out a smaller book, leather-bound and smelling of must and ink through the thick plastic she had it wrapped in. "I found a better book about them, but I haven't had a chance to dig into the Middle English. It takes time. Not that it matters. You still shouldn't kill them. They haven't done anything wrong."

"That we know about," said Edgar, glaring at Star and Michael. He looked away when Sam and Zoe gave him stern looks, and he started talking again before Zoe, who had opened her mouth, could lecture him again. "But if you go after any of us, or if I catch you acting like people are walking meals, I'm staking you without thinking twice."

Another car roared up, this one with no muffler and loud enough that Sam covered his ears, while Michael and Star flinched. Zoe was affected too, wincing at the sound, while Edgar paled. "Shit," he muttered.

"Who the hell is that?" asked Sam. "They do know that California requires emissions checks, right?"

"It's Alan's car," growled Edgar, tightening his grip on the stake and raising it up. "You think vampires care about emissions?"

He roared to a stop at the gate, kicking up dirt and spraying it across to the front yard. Alan stepped out. Three more vampires piled out at the same time, falling into line behind Alan. "I should've known you'd run home to mama, Sam."

"Mom's dead. Tacky, dude," said Sam. "Did you seriously bring a car full of vampires? Was it because you didn't think you could take us, or are you just overcompensating for having a tiny dick?"

"Your brother-in-law is a bit of an ass, isn't he?" asked Zoe, leaning over to Star.

"He's been good to me," murmured Star. She inched closer to Zoe. "Now might be a good time to pull out one of those stakes in your purse. Can I have the other one?"

"Are we going to have to fight them?" Zoe looked alarmed as she fished around in her purse, more alarmed Star would've expected from a werewolf. "I've never fought a vampire before."

"There's five of us and four of them," said Star. Six if David was hiding in the darkness, though the only thing she could guarantee was that he wouldn't let Star or Michael die. "If Alan's determined to go after Edgar and Sam, he's not going to let a little thing like one extra person stop him."

One of the vampires was a woman in a bikini top, who didn't understand how to dress for the weather and to stay unnoticeable, and the other two were bar rats who didn't look like they cared about anything but getting in a fight as soon as possible.

"Of course I'm going after Edgar and Sam," called Alan. His eyes were already red and his fangs were showing. "You don't just handed something this awesome and not share it with your brothers."

"Why the hell did you bring these guys home, Sammy?" asked Michael. "They're nothing but trouble."

"You married the reason I brought those guys home," said Sam, without heat. "Or did you forget? Dumbass."

"You and I are going for coffee when this is over and you're telling me everything, right?" asked Zoe. Her voice wavered as she pulled out two stakes, finally, and handed one to Star. "I mean, if we survive this."

"Maybe you can braid each other's hair while you're at it," snapped Edgar. "Could we focus on my brother? The vampire who wants to kill or turn us all? I'm going to put you out of your misery, Alan."

"Get my brother," said Alan. "Try not to kill the rest."

The larger, boozier-looking bar rat jumped the fence first, just took three steps back and leapt over it, bounding into the air to land in front of Zoe and Star. The other two jumped after that, Star could see them out of the corner of her eyes, but the drunk-looking man bared his fangs and hissed at them as Zoe stumbled back, yelping and dropping her stake. He stank of cheap beer and peanuts and had a gut that bounced as he walked, but he was twice their size and his biceps were as big as Star's head.

"Zoe!" shouted Edgar, running for her, only to be cut off by the woman in the bikini top, her fangs bared as she grabbed Edgar's shirt and started dragging him toward Alan.

"Grab him!" said Star, when Zoe just stared at the stake without moving. "Zoe!"

Zoe snapped out of her fugue and jumped for the man, tackling him to the ground with a growl that wasn't human, couldn't be human, with her lips drawn back in a snarl as she pinned him down. Star dove forward, hoping Edgar wouldn't hear, wouldn't look over and see the tight grin on her face as she stabbed the wooden stake down, splinters from the cheap, hurriedly carved pine stake driving into her hands when the other vampire's sternum cracked and broke, as the wood pierced his heart and his eyes widened.

As he screamed, Star twisted her hands in Zoe's shirt and yanked her backward, away from the vampire's blackening skin. By the time they tumbled away, falling into the yard and scrambling backward, he was covered in blisters that burst open, skin that kept cracking apart, until he was a fine, blackened powder that exploded outward, showering them in dirt that smelled of graveyard mold.

"Ew, gross!" exclaimed Zoe, clambering to her feet and brushing herself off in a way that only smeared the dirt around. "No one said I'd get covered in dead vampire! Why do they turn into something? Don't they just stay bodies?"

Star pushed herself up, looked around after she blinked the dirt out of her eyes. Michael and Sam had the other bar rat, the wirier one pinned, with Sam on top of him, keeping him in place as he shook and tried to buck him off, and Michael on the ground, his arms wrapped around the other vampire's head, one arm around the forehead and the other one under his chin, pulling as the bar rat screamed.

Edgar had gotten out of the bikini vampire's grip somehow and back on his feet, chasing the vampire who'd grabbed him and trying to stake her. She kept ducking back, but the fence was two feet behind her and she didn't know this yard, not like the Edgar did. She'd be staked any second. Not that it bothered Alan. He stood there, leaning on the hood of his car and laughing like he didn't have a care. Maybe he didn't. Maybe these were just friends, people he'd met and influenced. Coming after Sam and Edgar, she understood that. They created their own families, but he'd driven Sam away.

The bikini top vampire hit the fence, solid even years after Michael's grandfather had built it. She jumped forward again, but Edgar was ready for her this time, had the stake raised up. His muscles strained and he grunted with the effort of it, but he went under her sternum, through her ribcage, and staked bikini top at the same time as Michael tore the other vampire's head off.

Nights like this, it was good that Lucy had never moved out of the house. They were nearly an hour outside of Santa Carla proper, so no one would hear the screaming. Bikini top wailed and the sound rose like a banshee's scream and she flew apart in a whirlwind, spattering mostly Alan and Edgar in clear liquid, though Star and Zoe caught some of it, while Michael and Sam bore the brunt of the bloody ichor spewing out of the wiry bar rat's neck.

Alan laughed at them, at their bedraggled clothing and the anger on their faces as he jumped back into his car, starting up the engine. "I guess it's time for plan C."

Edgar glared at him, panting for breath and looking furious, still holding onto his stake. "I'll kill you myself."

"Good luck with that." Alan shouted as he revved the engine and peeled backward, kicking up another spray of gravel and dirt as he tore off, back into the night, maybe to find some more disposable vampires to order around.

"Oh my God." Zoe had the bedraggled remains of a tissue clutched in one hand and she had a queasy, panicked look. "Why am I here? Why are we doing this? This is gross."

A viscous stream of goo rolled down Zoe's cheek and dripped onto her shirt, and she doubled over and heaved up the remains of whatever she'd eaten for dinner. Star didn't look closely, didn't want to know what it was when the smell was mingling with dead vampire and she was holding onto the contents of her stomach only because she hadn't eaten anything tonight. Not even a half-vampire who'd never fed on human blood could be hungry after smelling all of this.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of vampire slaying," muttered Edgar. "Goddamn it, Alan. Why are you doing this to me?"

"Come on," said Star, stepping around the puddle of vomit and putting her arm around Zoe's shoulders. "You can use the shower and I'll lend you something to wear."

She glanced at the sky as she led Zoe inside, then gave Michael a worried look. The moon was high, which meant it was midnight already, and they needed to talk to Sam without anyone else around - especially not Edgar. Michael just shook his head at her. They'd have to talk later, once they got Edgar and Zoe sent off to a hotel, or preferably back to Luna Bay.

***

"Thanks," said Zoe, taking one of Lucy's older, more worn towels and a light green skirt and pale yellow tank top that Star hadn't worn in a while. She swallowed. "Some tough werewolf chick I am, puking at the first sight of a dead vampire, huh?"

"You looked pretty tough to me," said Star. She was still covered in moldy grave dirt and vampire goo. It didn't matter. She'd scrub it off after Zoe. "Just leave everything on the floor. We'll give the washing machine a workout later."

"Most of us avoid vampires. How do you do this?" asked Zoe, shrugging and looking down at where a fine shower of dirt had covered the floor. "Have you done this before? Edgar thought you were pretty harmless. He was more worried about Michael, but the way you staked that guy--."

"We'll worry about it after you've cleaned up," said Star. She nodded back at the shower, tried not to look at the tub. It wasn't the same one Paul had died in, after all. Most of the house had been rebuilt because of that night. "Take your time."

Star walked down the stairs and into the kitchen as Zoe closed the door behind her. Michael, Sam, and Edgar were still arguing outside, but none of them sounded homicidal, not this time. The fridge was still on, was still running cold and the blood was still in it. Sam hadn't drunk any, but he probably wasn't interested in animal blood. Not anymore.

She took the smallest tub, just two or three pints worth, and went up to Michael's room, stripping off her shirt on the way, her skirt just inside the room, and tossing both into a laundry hamper tucked haphazardly into a corner. Her bra and underwear went in next, and the whole thing would have to be washed at least twice before it stopped smelling like dead vampire.

She threw on a cotton robe, dark blue, thin fabric embroidered with cranes, one she'd bought during the year she and Michael had spent traveling in Japan, then fell back onto Michael's bed, sitting with her back against the headboard and one leg drawn up to her chest, the other stretched out in front of her. Her stomach was an empty pit after two nights without eating, though she'd gone without longer, so much longer, on other nights. She popped the top off the tub and drank from it like a glass, grimacing at the thin taste and wiping off her mouth with the back of her hand as she stared out the window, listened to Michael and Sam arguing Edgar down from heading off alone to kill his brother.

The wind picked up, blowing the curtains out and sending tree branches crashing against the windows, and when it died down, David was standing in front of her.

"Have you been watching this whole time?" asked Star. The whole room was bright, too bright, and her blood burned in her veins. She was almost shaking from the adrenaline rush of a fight, the way she'd broken through the other vampire's sternum to stake him, the way she and Zoe had worked together to defend themselves.

"I thought you were weak," he said. Of course he did. He always had. All of them had, because she hadn't killed to feed, because she slept with the sunlight on her skin and with Laddie nearby. Because she hadn't been able to kill Michael, even though she'd known, the instant she'd seen him, that he was more than just a first kill.

"Everyone does," said Star. The tub of blood was almost empty, so she set it aside on the nightstand. It hadn't been enough anyway. It never was. "Except Michael."

Michael, who had seen her every night for twenty years, who was there when the hunger crawled back into them, who had watched her back as they'd dealt with vampires and hunters both, neither of whom wanted them around, both of whom wanted them dead. Michael, who was the only one who knew even half of what she'd run from when she'd left home, who didn't ask her to go back, and who knew what it was to make her feel safe again.

"I'd have seen you bloodthirsty if you'd stayed in Santa Carla," said David. He looked out of place in Lucy's house, dangerous and predatory in a way that Lucy and her grandfather never had been, in a way that Michael and Star had tried to keep out of their lives. "I'd have loved it."

"You've been chasing after Michael and me since the night you recovered," said Star, standing and walking across the room to him. "One city behind us the whole time. If you'd wanted bloodthirstiness, you should have caught up."

David brushed the back of his fingers against Star's cheek, against her hair, before letting his hand drop. "You're the ones who left a trail of bodies behind you. Just think about what we can do now that we're together."

Wildness rose in her, bringing her vampire to the surface, in her eyes and on all her features, and David tangled his hands in her hair and tugged her close with a sharp pain, until Star gasped and David had his teeth in her throat. It made her dizzy, made her achingly hungry, made her want to feed. Made her want everything she didn't have right now. Michael must have heard them, must have gotten angry, because he burst into the room, leaping across it and pushing David away, punching him hard enough that she heard his cheekbone crack.

"Michael!" snapped Star. She stepped between them, put her palm on Michael's chest and pushed him back. "If I hadn't wanted David touching me, it wouldn't have happened."

"You drank from him and now you're letting him feed off you?" Michael was panting with anger, glaring at David, at her. "Why?"

"Because it feels good. Because we stopped pretending that we didn't want blood. Because it's been twenty years since I've seen David and I missed him." She couldn't stop talking, couldn't take her eyes off Michael, even with David chuckling behind her. Michael was passionate, hungry, furious. "Even if he's being an asshole."

"You're lucky you never killed any of my boys, Michael," said David. There was blood on his teeth, her own blood, and the smile in his voice was sharp. "I wouldn't forgive that."

Michael had tried to kill David, but failed, but Sam and the Frogs-- Michael realized it an instant before she did. It was in his eyes, fear turning to rage.

"You leave Sammy alone," snapped Michael, lunging past Star, aiming for David, who stepped to the side. "You don't touch him."

"Stop it!" Star moved back, there was no space between them now, not with Michael in David's face and threatening him. "David, if you hurt Sam, you're going to lose Michael and me both. He's family."

"We've shared blood," growled David. "I haven't shared with Sam. Why should I care about him?"

"Don't touch the Frogs," snapped Michael, shoving David. "Touch my brother and we're done, you and me."

"I'll let bygones be bygones," said David, in that soothing way that Star remembered, the way David talked when he wanted something. "As a favor to you and Star. Unless they step out of line."

The water cut off in the shower and Star turned toward the lack of sound. "Zoe's done. I smell like a graveyard and I'm going to take a shower. Are the two of you going to kill each other while I'm not here?"

Zoe popped open the door and ducked her head in. "Star, it's your--" She paused. "Okay, I'm not going to ask too many questions yet, because this whole night has been a little weird for me, but we're on for coffee tomorrow morning, right?"

"Tomorrow night," said Star, turning toward the door and doing her best not to look embarrassed. "Where are you and Edgar staying? At a hotel?"

"He's staying with his parents." Zoe looked sheepish. "I've got a room in the Super 8 on the edge of town. They do a continental breakfast."

"You're not telling her," said David.

"Let it go, David." Star left them both and walked to Zoe. "I'll meet you in the lobby a little bit after sunset. We'll find someplace to get coffee then. Okay?"

"Okay, but Edgar's going to be really crabby if I head off alone with you," said Zoe. She grinned as she said it, though. "You're not going to drink my blood?"

"I think I can make it one more night without killing you," said Star, smiling. "Take Edgar home before he and Sam start yelling at each other again. I'll see you tomorrow?" If there was anyone she could joke about it with, it would be a werewolf. They'd just met, but she liked Zoe, liked the way she handled a fight and liked how cheerful she was. Maybe this friendship would work. Even if she made her first kill, maybe it wouldn't change how she looked at Zoe. After all, weren't werewolves killers too?

"Sam took off," said Michael shortly. "We'll find him later."

"Right. I'll just leave you alone with Team Awkward then." Zoe smiled apologetically and closed the door behind her.

Star turned back to David and Michael, putting her back to the closed door. "I'm tired of smelling like dead vampires. Try not to break Lucy's house again."

***

"I didn't break the house the first time," muttered Michael, as Star turned around and closed the door behind her.

There was blood between him and David, he could feel it in his veins the way he couldn't back then, but there was more between him and Sammy. They were family. They'd lived through more together than he and David had. The only person he'd lived through as much with was Star.

"Then let's go out," said David. He had an excited look. He wanted something. He wasn't telling Michael what.

Michael gave him a surprised look. "You want to go out? What for?"

"I know you're hungry." David leaned closer, his breath on Michael's face. It smelled terrible, like old, rancid blood, but Michael didn't care. "So am I."

He'd been hungry since the fight had left him itching for more. Something in him remembered finding out what he was and hating it, but those memories were distant. He'd adapted. Tonight, he just wanted to fly out the window and quiet the itching need to stalk a meal.

"Fine," said Michael. Something in his blood was pulling him. "Let's go."

The sky was clear and sharp, cold when they went up high, but damp and smelling of salt over the ocean. It was exciting to soar over the ocean without needing an airplane. They didn't stay over the ocean long. Michael banked toward the beach, adjacent to the boardwalk, David alongside him. They didn't need to talk. Hell, they couldn't hear each other over the roar of the wind in their ears.

Sam and Star weren't with them. He wanted to hunt with them. Sam was his brother. They belonged together. He wanted to see Star soaring through the night, backlit against the sky. He'd seen her killing vampires and hunters, but he wanted to see her tracking down prey. She'd be beautiful. Deadly.

There were no hunters on the beach tonight. The moon was sinking low in the sky, and the only people he saw were sleeping, in the open and without a care for what else could be out tonight. He glanced at David and jerked his head in the direction of a couple sleeping together. No one was near them. No one would miss them. David laughed, but it was carried away by the wind, and they angled downward.

They moved almost as one as they swooped in. Michael grabbed the nearest, covering the man's mouth with one hand to stifle his cries as he carried him up into the air, out over the ocean where there were no floodlights. David had the girl. He'd ripped out her throat so she couldn't scream. She was gasping for air, but the only sound Michael heard was the gurgling of blood as it pooled in her throat.

The man was twisting in Michael's grip, trying to get free, so Michael bent his head down and bit into the man's neck. Blood poured into his mouth, hot and fresh. It rushed through his body, filling his veins, and Michael panted harshly, caught up in euphoria and trying to ride the wave of blood. The man's struggles faded and he went limp in Michael's arms.

When Michael opened his eyes, he couldn't see land. Just the ocean and David, holding the dead body of the woman he'd taken. "Leave them for the sharks," said David, twisting the woman's neck until the bones broke and letting her drop into the water. "No one will find them."

Hide the bodies. They'd have to, in order to preserve their secrecy. Edgar couldn't ignore this if he knew about it. Michael bent the man's neck to the side, took it too far and heard the cartilage popping. When the bones broke, he let the body plummet to the water. It hit with a splash and floated.

"Now I know why there are so many shark alerts at the beach." Michael glanced at the lightening horizon. He'd gotten too caught up in the hunt and lost track of time again. The edges of the sky were blue. "Time to find cover."

Time to find Star. At the cave, he hoped, not the house.

***

Star stepped out of the shower, clean and smelling of soap instead of moldy dirt or vampire blood, she'd used up the hot water. The house was silent, nothing moving in it except a couple of mice she'd never caught in the basement - and Sam, out on the front porch. Waiting, maybe, for her or for Michael. She pulled on a new skirt, this time eggplant-colored, and a gray tank top. She was tired of black, tired of mourning. Tired of pretending to be something she wasn't.

She pulled a shawl from the drawer and called the wind to her, let it rush through the room and catch in her clothing, tangle in her hair, before it carried her out to the porch, where Sam sat on the swing. "Did you kill Edgar?" she asked.

"Don't be stupid," he said, his face twisted in disgust. "I'm not going to kill him. Where's Michael?"

"Out with David." Feeding, most likely. Sam had been too. He smelled like blood, and Star swallowed. "I don't know where."

"You got a place to spend the day?" asked Sam. He looked anxious. "You and my brother, you're taking care of each other, right? You shouldn't trust David."

"He's as much my family as you and Michael are," said Star. She sat down next to Sam. She didn't think she'd been so close to him since well before she and Michael had left the country. "I don't know how to explain."

"I can feel it," said Sam, shrugging. "I got a blood connection to Alan. Like I can almost touch him through it. Almost like me and Michael have. So why's Alan pulling this shit?"

"Michael and I had each other. Now we have you and David." She shrugged. "Who does Alan have?"

No one, not tonight since they'd killed his friends, and not one person ever, if he didn't stop being such an asshole. If she could talk David into forgiving him and Edgar for Paul's death, then maybe. It would mean convincing Alan to stop trying to kill Zoe.

"You don't get it," said Sam. "Me and Alan and Edgar. We were going to be monster hunters forever."

Star reached up and ruffled Sam's hair. She'd gotten in the habit of treating him like a little brother ever since she'd moved into Lucy's house, after Lucy had learned that Star had nowhere else to go. "That's the problem with hunting monsters," she said. "If you don't end up dead, you'll end up a monster."

"Found that out the hard way," muttered Sam. "Alan jumped me when I was headed to Edgar's place. After he held me down and bled into me, he tried to get me to help him go after Edgar."

A low chuckle sounded above them. Star looked up at the roof. Alan had been perched on it, but when they saw him, he leapt down and landed without any noise on the porch. "You guys. Why not join the monsters?"

"How long have you been there, Alan?" asked Star. She rose to her feet with a slow deliberation, kept Alan's eyes on her by wrapping her shawl around her, drawing his gaze.

"You afraid I heard something you didn't want me to?" His teeth were sharp, all of them, and his eyes were flat black. He looked wrong. Whoever fed him their blood, they weren't part of her line, whoever made David and Max, and then as far back as they could go. Not that Star knew who that was, but she didn't care. Maybe David knew, or maybe David didn't care either. Sam wasn't part of them by blood, not that way, but he was Michael's brother, and hers, and that counted for just as much.

Alan, though, Alan wasn't hers. Not like Sam was. Not like Michael and David, she could feel the two of them deep in her bones. She could even feel Laddie, a thready, tenuous connection that threatened to break with every day he spent in the sun. Alan was just another vampire, though he was her friend. If he was still Sam's friend, and maybe more than that.

"You are not going to convince me that you're worth joining up with," said Sam. "Stop looking at Star like you want to kill her, man. Mike's going to go ballistic."

"She's the reason we got mixed up in all this," said Alan.

Sam shrugged. "I used to be mad, but she stuck around and Mike married her, so she's family. She and Mike took care of Mom when she got cancer, and that's after they ran off to the other side of the world to get away from this place."

Lucy was the one who had brought her in, made her and Laddie part of their family even though they had no money and couldn't afford to support two more people. She'd made Star a surrogate daughter even before she and Michael knew there was no one else for them, no one else who could understand what they'd been through. No one else who would ever feel the way they did about each other, even without the connection they could feel thrumming through their blood.

Sam, though, Sam had been wary at first, silent, until one day, a few months later, he'd asked her if she wanted breakfast, and that had been it. The dam had been broken and they'd been like brother and sister ever since.

"Max thought that bringing Michael and Sam in would bring Lucy to him to be a vampire. Even if I'd never met Michael, he and Sam would have been in danger." Star gave Alan a flat, assessing look. He was young, but stronger than her. Sam was here, but he might not go against Alan, not if Star's life wasn't in danger.

"She's right, dude," said Sam. "You got to get over that."

"Or maybe you could just join up, we could go after Edgar together, and then I get back to ignoring Captain Vampiro and his girlfriend like I've been doing since they left town." Alan jerked his head at something Star couldn't hear, looked past her, into the night. Star whirled, backing away from Alan, but she couldn't see who he'd been looking at.

Whoever it was, they got the message. Arrows whistled out of the night, one hitting Star in the shoulder, grating as it caught on bone, and another came on its heels that went through her stomach. An arrow caught Sam in the neck as he jumped for Alan, knocking him out of the way of an arrow that would have punctured his heart. It glanced off his neck instead, hitting an artery and spraying blood all over Sam.

She tried to call the winds, tried to fly away, but something in the arrows was burning her. Her thoughts were too scattered, the wind howled and tore down branches, but there was fire in her stomach, and darkness tunneled in on her vision until Star collapsed to the rough wood of the porch.

***

The pain hit Michael just as the sun was cresting over the horizon. He wasn't burning. It wasn't the sun, it was something inside him. He started to fall, but caught himself. They were almost to the cave.

Something was wrong, though. It was Star. She was in pain, she was in danger, but the sun was dragging on his bones, and he'd burn if he stayed out any longer.

He flew into the cave, out of the sunlight, and through the winding tunnels. David was on his heels. When they got through the passage, into the more open area with blankets and pillows that they'd spent the day in, it was empty.

Star wasn't in the cave. She wouldn't make him worry. They never spent the day apart.

"What happened?" asked David. The guy almost looked worried, but Michael had never been sure David had feelings. He'd wanted David to. He'd never known, not for sure, and he'd never asked Star. Would never ask her.

Michael shook his head. "Star's not here," he said. His stomach burned, but not with hunger. "Something's wrong."

"Maybe she left." David's lip curled into a sneer. "She's done it before."

"Not me, you asshole." Anger surged in him. Michael clenched one fist. He could punch David out. A fight would feel good. It wouldn't do anything help Star, though, so he clamped down on it. "She'd never leave me."

"She's scared of vampires," said David. "Scared of what's inside her. She always was."

Scared of you. Scared of him too. That was what David wasn't saying.

"I know Star better than you ever did." She wouldn't leave. Something was wrong. He shouldn't be hurting like this. "Something's wrong."

She was his wife. She'd packed up and moved home from across the world, no questions asked, when Mom needed them. She'd faced down vampires and hunters, and even when she'd been afraid, she'd faced her fears as much as she'd faced the people who wanted to hurt her.

"Fine, Michael," said David. He raised his hands up, a gesture of surrender that didn't have any submission to it. "Something's wrong with Star. We'll check it out."

"We'll find her tonight," said Michael. He would. He'd call Sammy. Sammy would help him.

***

Sunlight streamed onto Star's face, too bright, too much, but the burning in her stomach woke her up. She scrambled up, into the shadows underneath the window, where the sunlight couldn't reach, and slumped against the wall. Her eyes wanted to close. She needed to sleep. She dug her nails into her palms, drew blood and let the sharp pain and the adrenaline keep her awake.

Star looked down. The arrows had been pulled out of her stomach and shoulder, but the bandaged wounds were still burning. She didn't recognize the room, but it was an old factory, from the looks of it, with half-disintegrated wire spools propped in the corner and broken, rusted gears scattered on the floor. She staggered to the door, putting her hand out to pull the lever and slide it open. It was covered in water, falling one slow drop at a time from a length of plastic tubing, and it didn't move. The water burned her hand, raising red welts until she wiped the water off on her skirt.

Holy water. Holy water and a locked door. Star hissed in pain as she studied the door, then surveyed the room. She could get out. There was a lock, and this building, it was an old one, not well kept up.

She could do this. Star took a deep breath and turned for the spools. She could find the right length of cheap wire there. They couldn't keep out a former street girl who used to break into summer beach houses for shelter. She'd brave the holy water. It wouldn't give her acid burns, not the way it would Michael or David. Just painful welts.

She just had to get out the door, then out the building, and somehow keep herself awake the whole time. Star crouched down and picked up a piece of insulated wire. Her fingernails were long and sharp enough, so she stripped the casing off and then pulled apart a length of copper wire.

She was able to get the door clicked open within five minutes.

Daylight filtered through frosted glass windows inset into cinderblock walls ten feet up from the ground. She'd been in a freezer or a storeroom, and she wasn't the only one. Someone was shrieking in another storeroom, kicking one of the walls. Not the door, though, Star couldn't figure out why.

Whoever they were, they were confident enough not to have bothered with a guard. Not inside the building, at least. Maybe they thought Star was a full vampire, though she didn't know why they hadn't killed her. They had Sam and Alan, or Sam and Alan were dead and they just had her-- Star stopped dead in her tracks. Oh. Oh, _no_. Of course. Michael would come for her at sunset. Even David would come for her. That's why these hunters, whoever they were, hadn't killed them.

She had to get out of this building before sunset. Out of the building and away from here. She just needed to get outside, out under the sky.

First, though, she had to see who was hollering in the other storeroom. She'd have thought she'd be able to smell them, to smell anything, but the scent of flowers was overwhelming her. She stifled a sneeze and bent down, bending the copper wire again and twisting it in the lock. It was at least ten years old, with just enough rust that she punctured her finger on the other end when it got stuck. It was only a drop of blood that welled up, but the smell of it blossomed through the factory and Star licked it up. It clotted too fast, too little, and Star doubled over, struck by hunger pangs.

"Who's there?" She heard Zoe's voice through the door. Star recognized her now that she was saying something Star could understand, not just screaming.

"Quiet," hissed Star, tapping on the door. "Why are you here?"

"Star?" By the way her voice was muffled, Zoe was at least ten feet back from the door. At least she wasn't tied up, not judging by the pacing Star could hear. "Get me out of here!"

"Almost there," said Star, bracing herself against the door and working at the wire again. Her teeth were clenched together, her stomach was still burning, her shoulder felt like it was tearing every time she moved, and she was worried sick about Sam and Alan. She was even more worried about what would happen at sunset.

"Well, hurry up," snapped Zoe. "I'm getting itchier every second I spend in here."

With a click, the lock opened, and Star yanked the lever down and pulled the door open. Looking inside, the whole room was bordered with pots of tiny, fragrant purple flowers. The smell was overwhelming, which explained Zoe's red nose and bloodshot eyes. "You got stopped by hay fever?"

"It's wolfsbane," said Zoe, pushing by Star and rushing out the door, looking around. "Poison. It's just my bad luck that I'm also allergic to it. Either way, I couldn't touch the door."

"They had holy water dripping on mine," said Star. She held out one reddened hand. It stung and the skin would flake off as it started healing, but the holy water hadn't eaten through to her bones. "It doesn't burn the same way it would for a full vampire."

"So they thought you were going to get a fist full of acid," said Zoe. She wrinkled her nose. "Ew. Okay, so we're getting out of here, right?"

"Whoever took us, I think they have Sam and Alan," said Star. She glanced up at the windows, at the light that filtered in. It was still too bright. "We have to find them. Before sunset."

"What happens at sunset?" asked Zoe.

"Michael and David come looking for me," said Star. She peered down the corridor. The next three doors were propped open. There were more, further in, and where the windows started being replaced with ventilation filters and rusted hood vents and piping.

"Um, yeah. I can see how that would be bad." Zoe gestured at the door behind Star, the one she'd come out of. "Do you think you can close that up? I don't want to get poisoned before somebody tries to kill us."

***

"Why are we looking for more vampires?" asked Zoe. She glanced up warily at the wide patches of shadow. The sun was getting lower. "Seriously, they're bloodthirsty killing machines. We should be getting out of here."

Star paused and turned to face Zoe. "We're looking for my brother-in-law and a kid I've known since he was twelve," she said, hands on her hips. "I'm not leaving without them."

"You know most werewolves avoid vampires, right?" asked Zoe. "It just kills me that I like you, and then you have to go and do something like show loyalty to your family. Why couldn't you be like the asshole that tried to kill me last year?"

"Would you feel better if I tried to kill you?" asked Star. She grinned, she couldn't help herself. Zoe was funny, vivacious. Full of life, and still living in a world full of monsters.

"Cute," said Zoe, rolling her eyes. "Okay, fine. We'll look for Sam and Alan, but what happens if we run into the people who kidnapped us? Oh my God, what if Edgar comes looking for me? What if he asks about the wolfsbane?"

"I have no idea," said Star. She nodded down the hallway. "Come on. We have no idea how big this place is, and they'll be coming back at sunset."

"That's, like, the second time you mentioned it. Why is sunset such a big deal?" asked Zoe.

"That's when they can kill the most vampires," said Star. She started walking again, one hand trailing along the wall, deeper into the building.

"I can't believe I'm looking for vampires to save them," muttered Zoe. "Usually we're trying to kill each other."

Star looked over at her, saw her eyes glowing in the dark. They could both see, at least, could hear and smell, even if this was a maze, even if she had no idea where Sam and Alan were.

***

Michael woke before sunset. He couldn't sleep. Something felt wrong, like an ache in his bones. He shouldn't feel like this. Since he'd fed, he'd felt good. Bursting with energy. Now he felt sick. His veins were burning.

David was crouched on an outcropping, watching him with narrowed eyes. "Star didn't leave you."

"What makes you believe me now?" asked Michael.

"I can feel her," said David. He looked like a caged animal. He looked restless and hungry. "She's afraid of something. Not us."

"How long until sunset?" Whoever was making Star afraid, he'd kill them himself. Even if it was Alan.

David glanced at the roof of the cave, like he could see through it to the sky above. "An hour," he said, his voice deepening to a rough growl.

"Then we move," said Michael.

David didn't say anything. He didn't need to.

***

Zoe put one hand on Star's shoulder, pulling her back from the next corridor. "I can smell blood," she whispered.

Star leaned against Zoe, pushing away the tiredness and the sun calling her to sleep, inhaled, and there it was. Blood, blood she knew, calling to her. "It's Sam."

Whether he was hurt or dead, she didn't know. Whether he was awake or tied up, or asleep, she couldn't tell. She couldn't even tell if Alan was with him.

Most of the doors were unlocked, empty of prisoners and full of dust and garbage. Zoe wrinkled her nose at all of them, complaining about the smell, and the fourth was locked, but behind it was a skeleton, old and falling to dust.

"How long has this place been out of business anyway?" asked Zoe.

"Ten or fifteen years, I think." Star closed the door on the skeleton. She hadn't looked at its teeth, wouldn't look at them, wouldn't find out if it was a werewolf or a vampire, or just a lonely, lost human.

Star picked the fifth lock, but Zoe opened the door, grimacing at the holy water that didn't do anything to her. Sam was behind the door, passed out in the middle of the floor with an arrow sticking out of his chest. Not his heart, thank goodness. Alan was slumped in the corner, his cowboy hat crushed and limp on the ground.

"I can't believe I'm asking this," said Zoe, putting her hands on her hips and turning to Star. "But can we drag them out of here? This place is creeping me out."

"Into the sunlight?" asked Star. She shook her head. "It would kill them. We're going to have to wait for them to wake up and walk out of here with us."

"Well, damn." Zoe heaved a sigh. "You'd think at least they'd leave some comfy chairs for us."

 

***

Michael paced the cave. The sunlight tried to drag him down into sleep, but Star's worry kept him awake. David stayed crouched on the overhang, staring at him. The sun crawled down in the sky, one inch at a time, until he felt a burst of energy when it sank down below the horizon.

He took to the air. David was next to him. When they landed at Mom's house, it was empty and the doors were unlocked. The front porch was covered in blood. Star's blood. Sam's blood. One more person's blood, but Michael didn't know whose.

David growled. His eyes were golden-red and he looked as angry as Michael felt. "Time to kill."

He took to the air, David next to him. When Michael circled, lost, David beckoned. He knew where he was going, seemed to be able to follow a trail from the air, so Michael flew alongside David. The pull in his blood grew stronger, so they had to be getting closer.

"Here." David nodded down at an old industrial park, one with empty parking lots and torn up concrete. The windows on half the buildings were broken, but one lot, an old machine parts factory that he'd applied at and been turned down that first summer in Santa Carla, had repaired windows and lights.

Also a single truck in the parking lot, and Edgar hopping out of it, stake in one hand and giant squirt gun in the other. He still wore the red headband, even though it had faded to more of a pink.

If he'd been hesitant before, he was certain where Star and Sam were here now that he'd seen Edgar.

"Damn it," hissed Michael, touching down in the shadows, David next to him.

"Who's there?" Edgar whirled around and aimed his squirt gun at the shadows where Michael was standing. "Alan, if that's you--"

"It's me." He stepped into a patch of moonlight. David chuckled and flew into the night. Michael could feel him nearby, circling the building. "Sam and Star are in there. Someone took them."

"Someone took Zoe," snapped Edgar. "I think Alan's being a dick again."

"Alan's not going to kill Sam," hissed Michael. He stepped forward, put his hand on the holy water squirt gun and pushed down until it was aiming at the cracked pavement. "Or you. You can stop trying to kill your brother."

"He's not my brother," said Edgar. "He's a vampire."

"If you think that, you're an idiot, Edgar," said Michael, walking past him, up to the factory walls. The door was just enough ajar; the hinges looked too rusted shut to close.

"They'll be expecting us to blow in through the front door, guns blazing," muttered Edgar, coming to stand next to Michael. "It's the kind of thing I usually do."

Michael grinned and jerked his head up at the windows. They were twenty feet up. He could fly that far, but he could scale it too. He'd climbed a couple mountains before he and Star came back home. "How do you feel about climbing?" he asked.

"I could get into it," said Edgar, with a fierce grin.

***

Sam bolted upright, panic in his eyes as Star felt the sun slip below the horizon. "Shit!"

Alan was shifting, deeper asleep than Sam and still waking up.

 

 

 

"They'll be here soon," said Zoe. She swallowed. "Maybe they're already here."

"I have a fucking arrow in me!" exclaimed Sam. "Get it out."

"Pull it out yourself," said Alan, lying motionless in the corner. "I can't move. Fucking holy water."

"We have to get out of here," said Star. "It's going to be a blood bath if we don't." She leaned over Sam, planted her hand on his chest to hold him in place, and started to work the arrow out of his chest. He yelped in pain, and Star slapped her hand over his mouth to keep him quiet, then yanked the arrow all the way out.

"They tried to kill us." Alan smiled with his shark's teeth and blackened eyes. "It's going to be a bloodbath."

"Once you can move," added Zoe. She frowned and shook her head at Star. "I'm not up for killing people. How am I even here with you three?"

"Tell me the truth," said Sam, wincing as he pushed himself up to stand. "Did you just meet Edgar yesterday? Because people try to kill him all the time."

"I thought he was this kooky guy who liked comics," said Zoe. "I didn't expect vampires. Which, by the way, I know I'm in the room with, and I'm pretty sure trying to kill me wouldn't go well."

"Like I'm going to just try to kill someone," chuckled Alan.

"Alan." Star's voice was soft, but he looked over at her anyway. They'd known each other too long for him not to pay attention to her. "You're not going to kill her. Zoe's my friend."

"Dude, being a vampire does not give you the right to kill your brother's girlfriend," said Sam. He took three steps toward the door before he was swaying too much to keep going, before he dropped back to the ground. "I think the girls are going to have to carry us. Suck."

Star pushed up, smearing the dust on the floor, standing and dropping the arrow she'd been holding, letting it fall to the ground with a clatter. "I'm going to see what I can find out," said Star. "Maybe I can find a route out of here that they won't have covered."

"You're not leaving me with these two," said Zoe, dusting herself off and standing. "I don't want to walk out of here dead."

Sam laughed shakily. "You think Star's safe? Star's been a vampire longer than me and Alan both."

"She's been nicer to me than either of you," said Zoe, giving Star a worried look.

"It'll be fine," said Star. She smiled reassuringly, but it didn't look like Zoe felt any better. "We have to worry about the hunters, not each other."

Maybe she could find Michael and David, head them off before they got into a fight with who knew how many vampire hunters. Maybe she wanted them to come in, to kill everyone threatening their family. Maybe she wanted to kill the hunters herself.

No. She had to get out, to find Michael and David, head them off. She and Zoe had to get Sam and Alan out of here. She glanced back at Zoe, then pushed the door open. There was no light in the factory, nothing to see as she and Zoe crept along the hallway, out into the open, empty area where the equipment used to be.

Whoever they were, they'd taken up positions in the main factory floor while Star and Zoe had been waiting for sunset. It was meant to look empty, but she could hear nervous shifting, half a dozen people breathing. She could see them in the dark, watching the doors and aiming at nothing in the shadows.

David was at the windows, creeping through, his blonde hair pale and almost glowing in the half-full moon. She could feel Michael outside, here for her, on the other side of the factory from David.

"How are we getting out of here?" hissed Zoe.

Star held one finger up to her lips. The hunters would hear them, hear them and shoot, and she wanted to get out of here without being shot again. Her stomach still burned and her hands wouldn't stop itching, and she needed to get to the cave, to spend the day in Michael's arms, knowing she and Michael and David were safe, knowing Alan and Sam and Zoe were out of here.

Star looked up at the window and the moonlight. David met her eyes and grinned, fierce and hungry, his fangs gleaming in the dark. Zoe clutched at Star's arm, nodding at one of the hunters, a woman with long blonde hair holding a crossbow in one hand and a plastic water bottle in the other. Holy water.

She couldn't risk shouting, couldn't risk warning David and Michael, not when it would warn the hunters as well. This place, though, it was full of shadows and just enough light to set them off. She'd never been able to manipulate them, not as much as David and the other boys. If - when - she ever made her first kill, it would happen. She'd be stronger, she'd be able to fly higher. She'd lose the rest of her reflection. She'd lose the sun.

She would do it. Someday. She wouldn't be able to stop herself. But not tonight, she hoped not tonight.

Zoe nudged her again, tugged her forward, and Star shook her head. "Wait," she mouthed, frowning. The shadows were hard to shape into noise, hard to breathe into the air, especially when she was already week and hurting. She pushed into it, pushed the sound at David, then sagged back into Zoe's arms.

"They have holy water," the shadows said, using Star's voice to whisper into David's ear. Michael was too far from them, out of reach, she just had to hope he'd be all right as she fought off the blackness threatening to close in on her.

Just as Star pushed against the tunnel that her vision had become, light blasted through the factory, light and loud noise and a high, shrieking sound that nearly burst Star's eardrums until the blood spray hit her.

Her sense of smell sharpened and the tunnel vanished. David had blood on his hands and his face, holy water was dripping off his trench coat and his cheek was pockmarked from being splashed with it. Two hunters were on the ground, one dead with her throat torn out and one gasping for breath through a gaping hole in his chest.

A third hunter had an arrow nocked in a bow, aimed at Zoe.

"No!" yelled Star, grabbing for Zoe's arm and getting nothing but shreds of fur.

A wolf covered in glossy black fur dodged to the side, avoiding the arrow, then leapt on the hunter, bowling him over. Blood drenched the air around her, three hunters dead, with Sam pushing by her, still unsteady, but leaping up and scaling a ladder, jumping onto the platform at the top. A hunter was there too, she hadn't seen him, but Sam was on him, drinking his blood and stopping him from threatening the rest of them.

Something went through Star's shoulder, a burning pain that went through her knee and had her and pitching forward, until Michael caught her, carrying her up into the air.

Another hunter was up on the ceiling, on some kind of a wooden platform that had to have been put up when they were setting up their ambush. Whoever was up there, they were in the corner, in shadows that still weren't cleared. Michael landed on the platform, angry and predatory looking. The woman on the platform, she'd been the one to shoot Star.

"Do you want her?" asked Michael. He stalked the hunter, with her short red hair, backing her up to the edge of the platform, before grabbing her by the throat, pulling her close. "I killed their lookout already."

Star crouched down, bowed over her knee. She could smell the blood, all through the room and along the platform, but her knee throbbed, the bone aching where an arrow stuck out of her leg. It distracted her, pushed the hunger to the side, until Star grabbed the arrow in one hand and broke the head off. Jagged shards of pain went through her and she gasped as she pulled the arrow out. It burned like the other arrows had, like holy water.

"Star!" exclaimed Michael. He was at her side, slamming the red-haired hunter down at her feet. The woman gasped for breath as Michael choked her on the platform. "You're hurt."

"No." She shook her head and pitched herself off the platform, dragging herself away from the sweetly metallic smell.

Star hit the floor, which was covered with broken glass and shattered concrete, scraps of metal and jagged bits of machinery. Zoe was nearby, still a wolf, and backing away from a hunter that had wolfsbane braided into her hair. Star rolled onto her side and scooped up a rock, threw it at the hunter's head. It hit her with a wet thunk and she collapsed, even as Michael dropped down to the floor, crouching over her.

"They're dead," said David, touching down. He crouched next to Star, examining her. She smiled weakly. "Michael, get over here. Star's hurt."

"Still won't kill, will you?" asked Michael, brushing her hair out of her face.

Her lips were cracked and her mouth was bone dry. Her shoulder burned and her stomach was on fire, and Star didn't think she could stand on her bad leg, not until she'd had a night to heal.

"She needs blood," said Michael. He sliced through his wrist with a sharp fingernail and let his blood fall into Star's mouth. She swallowed, and some of the burning faded away as Zoe padded over, nudged Star's side with her muzzle.

"You want to tell me what you're doing with a werewolf?" asked David.

Star scooted upward and wrapped her arms around Zoe's neck, hugging her close and ignoring her yelp. "She's a friend," said Star, her voice gravelly. "They were using her as bait too."

Sam hopped down in a crouch, carrying a hunter with shallow breathing and blood running down his nose. "Alan's in the other room. I'm gonna play Meals on Wheels since he can't walk."

"Guys!" called Alan, panicked, and they all, even David, scrambled up and toward the sound of his voice, though David moved slower, keeping behind the rest of them.

Edgar kneeled over Alan, a stake in one hand and frozen in place. "We said we'd do it." He was breathing heavily, sweat beaded on his forehead. "If one of us got turned, the other was going to stake him, no questions asked. We had a deal, Alan!"

"Edgar, he's your brother," said Michael, shoving forward. "You can't kill your own brother."

"You and Sam are covered in blood," snapped Edgar, giving them disgusted looks. "I don't think you get an opinion, vampire."

"Don't be an idiot, Edgar," said Sam. He dropped the hunter he'd been carrying and kicked him toward Alan, who had passed out again. "Being a vampire is fucking awesome."

"Great. Just great. The entire fucking Emerson family are vampires." Edgar spat on the ground. "Which one of you assholes managed to raise a hell hound for a pet?"

Zoe huffed with displeasure and yipped at him.

"If you kill Alan, then he's gone forever." Star limped forward, pushing further into the room, past Sam and past the holy water puddle. Rivulets from it burned against her bare feet.

This was what Edgar would always regret, what Star had always regretted. If she'd thought, even for a moment, that she'd lose Paul, Marco, and Dwayne, that she wouldn't see David for twenty years, she'd never have asked Michael for help getting away. Not that way. She'd have stolen a car and taken Laddie and somehow talked Michael into leaving with her.

"He's a vampire. He's already gone." Edgar's voice was guttural as he tightened his grip on the stake.

"You can't bring him back," said Star. She stepped forward again. "He's family. You'll always have a hole in your life without him."

"You kill Alan, your mom and dad are gonna be _pissed_ ," added Sam.

Edgar's hand wavered. His eyes were moist, filled with tears, not anger.

"Edgar." Star knelt down next to Edgar, next to Alan and the hunter. She reached out to put one hand on Edgar's shoulder, but he flinched away from her, and Star did her best not to look hurt. She let her hand fall to her side. "Edgar, I know, but even if you never talk to him again, then he won't be dead. You don't want Alan's blood on your hands."

"Shit!" exclaimed Edgar. He dropped the stake to the ground with a clatter that made them all wince. Edgar had tears in his eyes and his voice broke. He bowed over Alan's unconscious body. "Shit. I can't do it. I can't kill him."

Star breathed a sigh of relief. "It's all right. No one blames you."

A gunshot roared through the room, and Edgar toppled over. The hunter had pulled a small pistol out from somewhere, from a pocket, maybe from a holster, and he'd shot Edgar, who was bleeding and Star wanted to lean over and drink from him, just a little bit, then more and still more, until she'd drained him dry and left him sprawled, sightless and staring up at the ceiling.

"Never give up the fight," said the hunter, triumph on his face until Sam lunged at him, snapping his neck and the gleam faded from his eyes. The hunter was dead, but Edgar, Edgar was bleeding from a bullet wound in his chest. He was dying. It wouldn't hurt anything if she finished him off.

"No!" she said, stumbling backward, until she reached the wall. "No."

She wouldn't kill a friend, not Edgar, who'd been practically family to her since she'd lost Marco, Paul, and Dwayne, since she'd thought she'd lost David. Since she'd gotten the Emersons and the Frogs, since she and Laddie thought they'd been saved.

"Edgar!" Alan had woken up at the gunshot, at the smell of his brother's blood. His eyes had gone pitch black and his teeth were serrated. Sam's were too. He pulled himself onto his side while Sam knelt over Edgar, and Michael was crouched by Star, giving her a worried look.

"You okay?" he asked roughly.

Star shook her head. She was sore and tired, and her wounds were burning, not healing, not yet, and she didn't look human, not any more, not when she was hungry and barely able to hold herself back.

"You'd better drink," said Alan. His wrist was bloody and he was holding it up to Edgar's mouth.

Edgar shook his head. He didn't say anything, maybe couldn't, but his mouth was clamped shut. "M'not," he mumbled.

"You idiot!" exclaimed Alan. "I promised Mom I'd watch out for you. She knows you're stupid. Let me turn you. The Frog brothers, together again."

"Awesome monster busters," said Sam, echoing Alan's sentiment.

Even with a fatal bullet wound, Edgar rolled his eyes. He coughed up blood, and Zoe was snuffling behind them with a worried whine.

Star had Michael's hand in her own, was trying to hold herself back by crushing his hand, shaking her head at him. "He doesn't want to be a vampire."

Zoe pushed by all of them, warm fur and smelling of California redwoods. She stared at Edgar, just for an instant, then lunged forward and bit his side just as Sam cried out and tried to grab for her.

"Whose fucking wolf is this?" asked Sam, cuffing Zoe's bloody muzzle. "Star, is it yours? Keep it away from Edgar."

"You assholes killed my whole team," gasped Edgar.

"Your team?" Sam grabbed Edgar's shirt and yanked him upward. "Your team? Was your team supposed to kidnap your girlfriend too, or was she part of your team?"

"If he's not going to drink, get him to the hospital," said Star, pushing away the red haze blurring her vision, the rage swamping her at Edgar's idiocy, as Michael helped her to stand.

"What the fuck is going on?" asked Alan. "By the way, I need to eat, like, half a dozen people before I can walk again."

She stopped, leaning on Michael as she stared at Zoe, who was blurring between a wolf and a human, stretching upward until she went from four legs to standing upright on two, and she looked angry. After all of this, to find out that Edgar had hired the hunters that had gone after them. How could he?

"This is ridiculous," announced Zoe. She stood in between Star and Edgar, naked and with her hands on her hips, and naked. "You are, every single one of you except for Star, Grade A idiots."

"Whoa," said Sam. "Zoe, why are you a wolf? And why did you bite Edgar?"

Edgar coughed a little more, looking less pale. He struggled out of Sam's grip and lurched back and forth before coming to a slump against the wall. "You didn't," he said. "Aw, hell. I don't wanna grow fur. Fangs suck."

"She's a werewolf, Sammy," said Michael. "Edgar's a werewolf too now. I think."

"He is," said Zoe, and she whirled around and glared at him. "We're going to have a little talk about not hanging out with jerks who use wolfsbane. And we're going to have to work out this whole vampire relatives thing."

"So my brother isn't dying," said Alan, frowning. "I'd still rather have him be a vampire, though."

"Let's go find you some clothes, Zoe," said Star. She nudged at Michael and limped forward. "Sam can get Alan and Edgar home."

"We can talk later," muttered Michael. "Sun's not far off."

The edges of her world faded to black. Her vision collapsed in on itself and Star pitched forward without even the time to hope that Michael would catch her.

***

Star woke with the sunset, sat up with her hand over her stomach as the moon rose and her namesakes glimmered in the night sky. She was cold, chilled to the bone, but the rough ground and sharp rocks never hurt her, hadn't for all the years she'd been with Michael, with David before him. It took sharper than that, the edge of a blade or worse.

David and Michael were still asleep, still slumped against the cave wall. They would sleep longer than her. David had always slept past sunset, well past, and Michael would too, now that there was no going back. Now that he was a vampire, not halfway there. She'd let them sleep, she'd see Zoe and Edgar and get an explanation for all of this.

Her shirt was still torn, but her skin didn't burn. She could shift and move without pain, so she'd healed overnight. Michael or David must have fed her. She had the taste of blood in her mouth and she wasn't hungry like she'd expected to be. Like she'd feared.

Her purse was at Lucy's house. Michael's house now, she supposed, and hers too. Her clothes were there too. She couldn't leave a note, but they'd find her. Michael would know where to look, and David could follow Michael, for once, suffer with being an equal instead of leading scared teenagers into the night.

She clambered out of the cave, looked up at the moon, gleaming silvery in the sky, and took off into the night.

***

"I've been waiting since at least an hour before sunset," said Zoe, her arms folded over her chest as Star touched down on the bare dirt at the edge of Lucy's driveway. "I thought you half-vampire types could go out during the day."

"I needed the sleep," said Star. She brushed her hair back, trying to comb her fingers through tangles and knots from the wind. "Besides, we were supposed to meet at your hotel. I came here to change."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want to talk about this stuff while having stale muffins at the Super8," said Zoe. Her eyes were still red, but her sniffling had stopped. "How are your boys?"

"Still asleep." Star walked past Zoe and knelt down on the porch, shoving everything that fell out of her purse two nights ago back into the dusty cloth. She stood and pushed open the door to the house. The whole thing smelled like animal musk. "How is Edgar? Did you take him to a doctor?"

"Vampires don't have a monopoly on super healing," said Edgar. He was sitting at the kitchen table, one hand on a crossbow aimed at her. He set it down on the table as she pulled a coffee tin from the cupboard. "I'd kill for a steak."

"There's no actual food in the house," said Star, scooping coffee into the machine and flipping it on. "Michael and I barely ate, even before he--"

"Turned all the way into a bloodsucking killing machine?" asked Edgar. "Alan and I could've helped you before it was too late."

"It's been too late for us for twenty years," said Star, her voice soft and gentle as she pulled down three mugs.

"I can't believe no one delivers out here," said Zoe, exasperated, as she let the screen door slam behind her. "Am I going to have to go out and bring down a deer to get a decent meal?"

Edgar's stomach growled. So did he, and not the way he did when he and Sam were fighting. "Am I going to be this hungry forever?"

"You get used to it," said Star. She poured herself a mug of coffee and leaned against the counter. "You're not going to shoot me, are you, Edgar?"

"Hell. Probably not." Edgar slouched down in his chair with a huff. "Sam would kill me."

"Probably literally these days," added Zoe. She swept up a mug for herself and poured coffee into it.

"No one is going to commit any interfamilial homicide," said Star. Edgar couldn't kill his brother, couldn't bring himself to do anything to Sam either.

"You and Edgar are related?" asked Zoe, looking between them. "I don't see it."

"In a manner of speaking," said Star.

"The Emersons and the Frogs have been through a lot together," added Edgar. "Even if that's gone to shit."

"So what now?" asked Zoe. "A whole pack of murderous vampires just moved back into town. Doesn't bode well for the tourist trade."

"What do you care?" asked Edgar. "You live in Luna Bay."

"Every werewolf up and down the coast remembers when vampires lived in Santa Carla. Half of us thought it was good eating and the other half wanted to storm the city with fire and claws."

Edgar knocked his chair over as he snatched up his crossbow and stumbled backward to the counter. He had the crossbow up and aimed it at Zoe. "Wait, you're telling me that werewolves are cannibals?"

"Not all of us," said Zoe. "Werewolves eat a whole lot of meat, and vampires drain the blood from large prey before they drop them. Some of us call it symbiotic."

"What about you?" asked Edgar. "Are you a cannibal?"

"First of all, it's not cannibalism," said Zoe, her eyes bright and wild and her face flushed with anger. "I'm not human and neither are you."

"I'm human enough to care about other people," snapped Edgar. "Same as Star, or she'd be with Michael and that blond asshole David instead of here."

"Stop it, Edgar," said Star. She set her coffee mug down with a thud and walked over to him. His hands were steady, even with his voice rough and shaking from anger. "Whatever Michael and David do, it has nothing to do with you."

Michael and David were both murderers, both vampires, but then again, so was she. How could she judge them for what she'd done, what she was going to do someday?

"It has everything to do with me," said Edgar. "My brother is a vampire. My best friend is a vampire. All because his stupid brother couldn't keep it in his pants. So yeah, it has to do with me."

Star put her hand on the crossbow and forced it down, pushing against Edgar's straining muscles. She was stronger than him, stronger than most of them, after all the time she'd spent traveling the night, living in the world of vampires and hunters and surviving with both of them after her. Drinking animal blood for so long had kept her weak, but the past few nights she'd had David's blood, Michael's blood. She was stronger than she had ever been.

"Don't, Edgar," she said. She took the crossbow from his hand, using gentle strength, while Zoe watched. "You and Alan and Sam wanted to keep hunting. What happened to Alan and Sam is because of that, not because of what Michael and I did twenty years ago."

"I couldn't do it. I promised Alan I would, but I couldn't, and now everyone's a monster."

"Would you rather be dead?" asked Zoe, her voice sharp and her lips pinched with exasperation. "Get over it, Edgar. Your brother's not dead. Sam's not dead. Hell, none of us are dead, and there was a very determined group of hunters - led by you, I might add - that were trying to kill all of us."

"There's a lot to be said for living, even if it's not the life you wanted," said Star. She'd never had the life she'd wanted, not when she'd run away from home, not before she'd run, when things were hard, and never since she'd met David, but it didn't matter, not what was done to her, but what she took of her life and made of it since those nights. "I don't know how long werewolves live, but you don't want to be miserable for all of it."

"As long as vampires," said Zoe, "Which means we have a hell of a lot of getting along to do. Nobody likes a self-loathing werewolf, Edgar."

"Hell." Edgar clenched one fist. "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. None of this is how it was supposed to happen."

He was torn, hurting and caught between two worlds, just like Star had been, just like Zoe, like all of them, even David, though he never once talked about it. There was always a story.

"Welcome to real life, pal," said Zoe.

"Real life sucks," snarled Edgar. There was a wolf inside him, so close to the surface she could smell it on him. Between him and Zoe, the room was full of the unbearable scent of the wild, of everything inhuman straining underneath Edgar's skin.

"It could be worse," said Star, smiling a little sadly at him. "You know that."

"Yeah." Edgar's anger broke and he slumped forward. "My whole plan was a clusterfuck."

"You think?" asked Zoe. "Hunting groups _do not care_ whether you're the dangerous kind of monster or not, and they track werewolf families. I'd never have left Luna Bay if I'd known you were bringing in hunters. They steer clear of Luna Bay. At least three werewolf families den there."

"I didn't know you were a werewolf," pointed out Edgar. "How the hell would I know hunters would target you? I'm a vampire hunter. I don't deal with werewolves."

"This guy hassling you ladies?" Sam stood silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the moon and the stars, his face dark.

"It's all right," said Star, turning with a smile. "Edgar's adjusting."

"Screw that," said Sam, striding in, flipping a chair backward and facing Edgar before sitting down in it. "Hunters, man? What the hell?"

"You're a fucking vampire," spat Edgar. "I was trying to save lives."

"Whatever." Sam put his arms up, fingers interlaced and his hands pillowed behind his head. "I hear you're going to get real hungry next full moon."

"Sam!" exclaimed Star.

"No, he's right," said Zoe. "You're going to change and you'll want to hunt. We'll hit up a national park with the rest of the pack before then. Camping trip."

"You have a pack?" asked Edgar. "What the hell?"

"Don't care," said Sam. "Figure out whatever you gotta figure out and get over it. Rest of us did."

"How the hell am I supposed to deal with turning into a monster?" asked Edgar. "You tell me, Sam. You seem pretty happy with it."

"You deal with it the same way the rest of us do." They didn't have the answers, none of them did, none of them did, but they all found their own way through. Star put her hand on Edgar's arm, mustered every bit of sympathy she had. "Some of us fight it. Some give in early, and some do it when they don't have a choice."

"Is that what happened to Sam and Mike?" asked Edgar, anger flaring in his eyes. "They just decide, hey, tonight's a good night to have a murder party?"

"Edgar!" gasped Zoe.

Star reached out and slapped him, sending Edgar reeling backwards onto the counter. "Sam made his first kill to save Michael's life," she snapped, fighting the red haze at the edges of her vision. "Michael did it to save mine. Your hunters tried to kill us."

"Yeah, real dick move, there, Edgar," added Sam., pushing the chair back so it was resting on two legs. "You going to kill him, Star?"

"No," she snapped, whirling around. He was blunt. Homicidal. Angry. Not like the Sam she'd gotten to know, the boy who had cried in her arms when Nanook finally died from old age. "I wouldn't. Don't be ridiculous. Edgar's family."

"Does that make the other werewolf family too?" asked Sam.

"I am not on the menu," snapped Zoe, her eyes glinting feral yellow.

"I screwed everything up, didn't I?" asked Edgar. He'd pushed back up, was leaning against the counter, red-faced and trying to catch his breath. "I tried to fix what happened to Alan and screwed it up for everyone else."

"You were pretty stupid," said Sam. He jerked his head back, at the open door. "Alan's outside. Go talk to him."

"I don't approve of you guys being vampires," said Edgar. "Even if I couldn't kill him, I'm not happy about you guys turning this place into homicide central again."

"Get over yourself," said Sam, flipping him off. "You're stuck with us, dude, and we're stuck with you. Go see your brother, man."

"You go too, Sam," said Star. She gave him a wry smile, and the way he couldn't meet her eyes, she knew she'd looked sadder than she'd wanted to. "Make sure neither of them kills the other."

***

"So just us girls," said Zoe, when Sam and Edgar were outside, near the edge of the lawn and just barely avoiding yelling at each other.

"Just us," echoed Star. She paused for what felt like the longest, most awkward silence since David had told her what she was and she'd laughed at him.

"I don't really know what else there is to say," said Zoe, turning her back and rearranging cups on the counter. "I mean, thanks for getting me out of that place. Death by wolfsbane anaphylaxis would've sucked."

"Thanks for saving Edgar's life." Star stepped forward, next to Zoe, and handed her a mug full of coffee, the acrid smell of it filling her nose and covering up, at least for now, the smell of blood and sickness that had filled Lucy's house for months. "He's an asshole, but he's our asshole."

Zoe laughed, abrupt and harsh, like it was dragged out of her before she could stop. "That's about the best description of Edgar I've ever heard."

"You know you're stuck with the rest of us too," added Star.

"Can't avoid the monsters if you try, can you?" asked Zoe wryly. She took the coffee and peered down at it, then lifted it up to her nose and sniffed. "I can't tell if there's blood in it. You know you can't turn a werewolf, right?"

"I don't turn people," said Star. She didn't want more vampires. The ones she had were enough. Even if she'd found David's bottle, even if they'd been able to turn Lucy, neither she nor Michael would have, not ever. Not when Lucy had never wanted to be immortal. Not when Lucy was too kind to live the life that they'd be forced into one night or another.

"I know," said Zoe, giving a half-shrug. "It's just something to say. I don't know what's next, do you?"

"I never do," said Star.

"World's our oyster." David stood just inside the door, Michael next to him, both of them grinning wildly and smelling of blood. Smelling so good. David's gaze snapped to Zoe and his smile vanished. "Leave."

"Looks like the welcome wagon is worn out," said Zoe, rolling her eyes. "At least where these two are concerned, and I've got to check on Edgar anyway. Star, I'll catch you later."

She was outside in a heartbeat, the smell of fur and pine trees and the wild air wafting past Star, mixing with the smell of blood. Star closed her eyes and choked back the urge to run after her, to hunt with Zoe through the night. From the wild gleam in Zoe's eyes, from her laugh as she glanced back over her shoulder at Star, they both wanted to.

"How cozy," said David, chuckling and as sardonic as always. "Star made a friend."

"You're being an asshole again, David. Stop it." Star drank her coffee, slow and deliberate, meeting David's eyes over the rim. She'd learned to choke down anything that wasn't blood years ago, forced herself to do the small, human things so she would remember why she wanted, needed, to stay human.

Only things were different. Lucy was dead. Michael and Sam both vampires, both killers, and Laddie fading out of her more at every sunset, happier with his wife and daughter than he ever would be with them. He deserved that happiness, deserved what she had found with Michael, but in the sun.

"You're better?" Michael was next to her, one arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close. She leaned into him, settled against his side like she was home as David's eyes darkened.

She was home, with Michael, wherever they were, even if that was a decrepit hotel, or a cave in the cliffs above the sea, and with David, who was achingly lonely and would never admit to them how he felt.

"I'm fine," said Star. "You don't need to worry about Zoe." She slipped past them to stare out the door, at Sam and Alan and Edgar, arguing while Zoe rolled her eyes at all of them. "She's a good person, maybe better than us."

"You don't know that." David's voice was a low, threatening growl. "Trust is precious. Don't give it to a wolf."

"So is family," said Michael. "That makes Zoe one of us, whether you trust her or not."

"I trust you and Michael," David ground out. "Not them."

"Get over it, David." said Michael. "We're not abandoning Sammy."

"Stop it, both of you," said Star. "We'll figure this out, but you have to stop fighting."

"You're not scared," said David, for once not sounding angry, not menacing, as he brushed Star's hair back and trailed his fingertips down her neck, making her shiver. He reached out, pulled Michael to him, one hand wrapped around his forearm.

Michael breathed in, a deep hiss, and kissed him, both of them clashing as they pressed against each other.

"We haven't been afraid of vampires," said Michael, pulling back and breathing heavily, a sharp grin on his face, "for a very long time."

Star glanced past them, at Sam, who was staring into the kitchen, his jaw slack. She smiled at him, sharp-toothed herself, and closed the kitchen door.

David chuckled, long and low, as Star turned, lay her hand on his shoulder, then twisted around behind him and hooked her hand in his belt and tugged.

"Upstairs," she said, and David took one step backwards, then another, before the winds took them to the bedroom, before David's duster was puddled on the floor, his pale white skin flashing in the night air as Michael pushed his shirt up and off and undid David's pants, nuzzling greedily and taking David's cock in his mouth.

Star perched on the edge of the bed, her breath coming quickly as David groaned, as Michael pushed him back against the wall. It was unexpected, undreamed of, David losing himself in Michael's mouth, eyes reddened and fangs bared in the moonlight.

With a hoarse shout, David pushed Michael back and stumbled away. Michael was on his feet, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his fist. "You like that?" he asked, smug.

"Yeah," admitted David, slow and grudging. "Yeah, I liked that."

His gaze swung to Star, to where she sat on the bed, leaning back on her arms. "It's been a long time," she said.

"Too long?" asked David, on top of her, his hand going under her skirt, inching up her thigh.

Star's breath came faster. She tilted her hips, let his fingertips glide to her entrance, slick and wet, and she grinned, wild and seventeen again, seventeen forever, walking the Boardwalk all night long, not afraid, not any more. "Too long," she gasped, and David moved, moved faster than any normal human would ever be able to see, until he was buried inside her, still half-dressed, ripping at her clothing as Star dragged her nails down David's back. The air filled with the scent of blood as they moved together.

Michael's eyes widened, his nostrils flared. He was hard. She saw the lines of his cock in his jeans, saw him pull the zipper down, slip his hand inside and stroke himself. He stood next to David, bent down and drank from him as blood dripped, dark and slow, down his back and coated Star's fingertips.

David moved inside her, his mouth on hers, his teeth sharp and Michael moving his hand on his cock, in the same rhythm, and Star brought her fingers to her mouth, tasted David's blood, vampire blood. It was so full, so rich, his fingers were on her clit, and Star wrapped her arms around his neck, thrusting once, twice, against him before she shuddered and the world dissolved into a red haze.

When she came back to herself, the room smelled of musk, of Michael and David sprawled on the bed, each on one side of her. It had been so long since she'd seen David, since she'd felt his skin underneath hers, and never before without fear, and Michael, he'd been here for her every night, every day, since he'd gotten sucked into her world.

She was here with them, with David inside her, home wherever they were, in Santa Carla or Paris or Morocco. Anywhere they could lock themselves away from the day together, anywhere with Sam and the Frogs and Zoe too, that was where she belonged.

There were heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, boots and a familiar tread. "Mike! Star! Asshole!" Sam hammered on the door, sounding irritated. She could picture him rolling his eyes. "I don't know what perverted vampire shit you're doing in there, but put your clothes on and get downstairs. Edgar says his hunter buddies have friends coming to find out what went wrong."

\--end--


End file.
